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Martha Jane Cannary – “Calamity Jane”

© Katie Anne Gustafsson

As a child, I watched Doris Day whipcracking her way through the movie "Calamity Jane" completely mesmerised. To this day, it is my favourite musical. However, it was during my early teenage years that I discovered that "Calamity Jane" was a real life person, and not just a character created for a film. My passion for the Wild West was further fuelled and I tried to find out more about this female hell-raiser. Unfortunately, although many stories of Calamity exist, not many of them seem to have been authenticated - and most of the ones that she herself told in her journals of later years appear to have been met with scepticism and disbelief by those who have read them. I'm not sure. Perhaps it is because I have watched the rise of women during the past 20 years from doormats to great leaders of nations that I prefer to keep an open mind on this. Perhaps it's because I prefer to believe the myth that a woman was strong enough to undertake the daring exploits that Calamity recorded. Or perhaps it's just that I would love for her to prove them wrong, to have some evidence somewhere come up to bear out what she said she did actually happened. They were wild days, and she was a wild woman - the claims she made can't be established, but they can't be completely invalidated either - so I will record here some of the facts she wrote, and leave you to decide yourself whether or not you believe a woman of a century ago could be that strong.

Born Martha Jane Cannary, in Princeton, Missouri, 1st May 1852, she was the eldest of six children. At the age of 13, her family moved to Montana, a journey that took them over 5 months to complete, and during which time Martha Jane revelled in the dangerous excitement, and joined the menfolk hunting and shooting. She was orphaned by the age of 15 and roamed around the mining settlements of the "Wild West" until she became a scout for General Custer in 1870. According to Martha Jane's story, it was at this time that she started to wear men's clothing, and according to another source, it was when she was found to be a woman in 1876 that her military career with various Indian campaigns was brought to an end.

The name by which she would be become famous worldwide was obtained, according to the Blackhills Museum, by uncertain methods - they suggest either her "hard-luck times" or the "fate of her enemies". Calamity herself tells a much different story which involved saving the life of a Captain Egan during a skirmish with the Indians and who later gave her the nickname.

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