Since March is National Women's History month, I've been researching notable women from the past. When I found Stagecoach Mary, I found one in a million.
Last year Mary was inducted into the Texas Trail of Fame. A bronze marker, telling her story and fashioned after a frontier marshal's badge, was placed in Fort Worth's Stockyards National Historic District. She joined people like Charles Goodnight, Quanah Parker, Fredric Remington, Zane Grey and Roy Rogers.
Mary was born a slave in Tennessee around 1832 and orphaned by age 14. She learned to read and write, and after her father was sold, her mother gave her the surname of "Fields" because that's the area of the plantation where her father worked. She never married and had no children.
At age 30, she and Dolly, her slave master's daughter, who was born within two weeks of the slave girl, went to a mission in Montana to establish schools for Native Americans. The Indians, who loved her and were in awe of her, called her "White Crow" because they said she "acts like a white woman, but has black skin like a crow."
Mary became the first African American and the second woman ever hired to deliver mail. Wells Fargo, which had the mail delivery contract, hired her at age 60. That was when she earned the nickname "Stagecoach Mary." Standing six feet tall and weighing more than 200 pounds, she could switch out a team of six horses faster than any man.
Despite the harsh Montana weather, this strong, gun-totin', cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking, swearing woman did an excellent job for Wells Fargo. Using horses and her mule, Moses, she was known as one of the most dependable mail carriers ever. When the snow was too deep for the horses, she walked in snow shoes, carrying the mail on her back.
She died in Cascade, Montana in 1914.
Stagecoach Mary Fields broke all the barriers of race, gender and age. The world needs more folks like her.
Today's quote: A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same. ~ Elbert Hubbard
No comments:
Post a Comment