Stagecoach Mary: The Black Pioneer Who Outfought the Wild West

Step into the dusty streets of Cascade, Montana, to meet a true Wild West legend: Stagecoach Mary Fields, an icon of black history. Born into slavery, she found a life of independence that few women of her time could imagine. Standing six feet tall and never without her Smith & Wesson, she became the first African American woman star route mail carrier in the United States.

​In this episode, we explore the incredible history of the Wild West through the eyes of a woman who was as tough as she was kind. 

From fending off wolves and outlaws to her legendary 100% mail delivery success rate, Mary Fields defined what it meant to be a Western pioneer. We’ll dive into her unique relationship with the local community, her friendship with a young Gary Cooper, and why her legacy remains a vital part of Black Western history.

​Whether you're a fan of untold history podcasts or stories of the American frontier, the life of Stagecoach Mary is a masterclass in grit and resilience.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:27

In the rugged, untamed expanse of the American West, where legends were forged by Britton gunpowder, there was a woman whose story stands apart. With a double-barreled shotgun under her arm and a cigar cut between her teeth, who is the most intimidating figure in the epic epic and mail and electronic.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Honourable Mention.

SPEAKER_05 1:17

Hello, listener. What did you think of that opening? It's a new thing we've thought would trial. Let us know if you have any strong opinions, and don't if you don't. It's as simple as that really. Anyway, just when you thought your day couldn't get any more spiffing, I do hope it's spiffing, listener. I'm going to do it. I'm gonna say Hello, Neil.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Hello, Stevie, how are you?

SPEAKER_05 1:42

Yes, I'm good, thank you very much. Are you spiffing?

SPEAKER_03 1:45

I'm always spiffing. Get in trouble for it.

SPEAKER_05 1:48

Do you?

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Oof. I will not tell you. But I can't go into Tesco's for a while.

SPEAKER_05 1:57

And Hello Neil. Bonjour.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Are you going to welcome the listener to Honourable Mentions? Yes, welcome listener to Honorable Mentions.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

Today I've started off, I've drawn a little picture in Crayon. Have you? Yeah, look, it's a desolate, featureless, barren landscape.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Snow as well. Is it just like a wintry scene?

SPEAKER_05 2:19

No, that's sandy, sort of dusty.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Oh, I thought you'd just show me a plain piece of paper.

SPEAKER_05 2:24

No. Oh no, sorry, the wrong way around. There you go. Oh yeah. Yeah, can you see that now?

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:29

Yeah. It's a barren, desolate, featureless landscape with tumbleweeds blowing down the road. Look in the corner there. There's a bar where the floorboards are all roughly sawn and creak beneath the feet of all those people in there with nothing better to do with their lives than sip whiskey and gamble the day away.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Playing that is that some sort of silly piano in the background going that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_05 2:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

Oh gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 2:58

I call it Northampton. There's that threat, underlying threat of a hair trigger violence.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 3:03

Ready any second now.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_05 3:07

Yeah. It's good, isn't it? I think of entering it for a competition.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Um I wouldn't bother. I entered a competition into a drawing in um in Southampton.

SPEAKER_05 3:16

You entered a competition into a drawing.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

We went to a pub in Southampton and they were given it pieces of paper with some patterns all on it and everything for the kids to colour in. And then you stuck it on the wall and then they voted for who's the best. So I I entered it. So there's all these kids age five, six, seven, eight, and maybe age fifty-four. And they you know what? Never heard a thing. Never heard a thing. I was gutted. I did a cracking job in that. I didn't speak to anyone for the home meal, I was just colouring in.

SPEAKER_05 3:47

I entered a competition the other day for the S contortionist, so I entered myself and won.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

I'm not gonna say anything to that. It's not worth it, is it?

SPEAKER_05 4:01

Right, are you ready, Neil, to get going with Mary Fields?

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Oh, go on then.

SPEAKER_05 4:06

Stage.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Won't she in Cannonball Run? Who? Mary Fields. I don't know. She's an actress, isn't she? Oh, I'm thinking of Sally Fields.

SPEAKER_05 4:15

This is Mary Fields. Right. We're talking about here, Neil, today, for today's episode of Honorable Mentions, please. Mary Fields was born into slavery in Hickman County, Tennessee. Her exact date of birth is lost to history, but it was around half past six, eighteen thirty-two, somewhere around that. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

It's quite quite precise.

SPEAKER_05 4:37

It is quite precise, isn't it? Before the American Civil War, she was enslaved to the Warner family in West Virginia, and like countless other slaves, she gained her freedom in the aftermath of that conflict.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Really?

SPEAKER_05 4:54

Once freed, Mary joined other former slaves by heading north, as she would do because the Confederacy was the South and the Union was the North, and it was the Confederacy that fought the war because they wanted to keep their rights to slavery. So she and a lot of other slaves headed north away from their horrific past and determined to make a new life in a rapidly changing country.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Did she meet John Snorr? Who's John Snorr? John Snorr. He was warden of the North.

SPEAKER_05 5:24

Mary Fields, Neil.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 5:27

She travelled up the Mississippi working any honest job she could find, and eventually Mary became a chambermaid on the ironically named steamboat Robert E. Lee.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Robert E. Lee.

SPEAKER_05 5:41

Robert E. Lee.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Oh. She was a chambermaid. Is that just emptying the pots over the side?

SPEAKER_05 5:50

Basically, I think.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:52

Yeah. Or looking at the the chamber, being the bedrooms or whatever. Why was it Robert E. Lee, an ironically named steamboat?

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Um Bobby Lee. Is it because he was a um musician?

SPEAKER_05 6:07

You were very good at the history of pizzas last week. But not so much on the history of the American Civil War. Robert E. Lee, he was the general of the Confederate Army in the American Civil War. So he was the uh supposed direct equivalent of Abraham Lincoln and Stonewall Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant and people like that.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Samuel Jackson.

SPEAKER_05 6:31

Stonewall Jackson. Oh, say. He's not that old.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_05 6:37

It was aboard the Robert E. Lee where she met a man by the name of Judge Edmund Dunn. Standing at a towering six feet tall or one point eight meters and two hundred pounds in American.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 6:57

Mary was a formidable figure.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Big old girl, was she?

SPEAKER_05 7:01

So that's Mary we're talking about here, not your Judge Edmund Dunn. She swore like swore like a potty mouth sailor.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Did she?

SPEAKER_05 7:11

Smoked cigars, drank hard liquor, and drank many a man under the table. She had a natural way with children, was kind to everyone who returned her kindness, and she made quite the impression on the judge. I bet she did.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

I bet she did. What she thinks she started off with Bruce Forsyth and then sort of moved into Tommy Cooper, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_05 7:31

Sammy Davis Jr. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:33

That's a good suggestion, Neil, because I was thinking more of she made the impression, as in her charisma stuck with him, that she was doing John Wayne.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Perhaps I got him mistaken, perhaps while I got thrown out of my interview the other day. Can you give me your impression of the business? And well, I tried, but they just looked at me gone out.

SPEAKER_05 7:51

Yeah, last interview I had, they said, Can you perform under pressure? I said, Not really, but I can probably give you Bohemian rhapsody. Judge Edmund Dunn was so much taken with Mary, he hired her as a servant in his household in the early 1870s.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Yeah, but he did.

SPEAKER_05 8:13

When the judge's wife died around 1875, he sent Mary with his five children to live with his sister Sarah, or as she was now known.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Sarah Lee. Any guesses make cakes.

SPEAKER_05 8:27

No. I guess what her name was known to history as Sarah.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

Was she Billy the kid?

SPEAKER_05 8:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_05 8:38

No. She was Mary Amadeus, mother superior of a convent in Toledo, Ohio.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Never heard of it. Of course.

SPEAKER_05 8:51

Amadeus Amadeus? Is that the Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus? Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

That's most things.

SPEAKER_05 9:01

That was Falco, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Falco, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_05 9:04

Falco. Falco was a footballer.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Anyway, stop.

SPEAKER_05 9:08

Stop this gay banter. Let's go back to the story.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_05 9:13

The former slave and the nun instantly became the closest of friends. According to the Toledo is it Toledo or Toledo? I'm going to say Toledo Blade newspaper. When Mary arrived in Toledo, Mother Amadeus asked if she needed anything, to which Mary replied, yeah, a good cigar and a drink.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:35

You like Mary already, don't you? She's that sort of person, I think, that you think, yeah, she's a good old gal. Mary settled into the role of groundskeeper, where the nuns noted she had the temperament of a grisly bear.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Well, I just used to walk around and kill fish.

SPEAKER_05 9:52

And fighting people had been struck by lightning seven times.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Well, yeah, well, being beaten off with a stick. Don't try that home, people, that hurts.

SPEAKER_05 10:02

You're smut. She was known for her willingness to fight, with some accounts claiming she had a standing bet that she can knock out any man with a single punch. And she never lost that bet.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

I wouldn't thought many people would have go for it, really. She might have had bad breath.

SPEAKER_05 10:18

Well, and that was what was knocking people out.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

Yeah, they're like, What do you mean? Me and dog poop.

SPEAKER_05 10:25

Once she chased down a fella who had verbally insulted her and pelted him with rocks, putting a permanent dent in his skull. Nice. One nun famously joked, God help anyone who walked on the lawn after Mary had cut it. She weren't taking no messing, was she? Was she just?

SPEAKER_03 10:43

When does she put the stripes in the lawn when they do?

SPEAKER_05 10:49

Yeah, she invented that.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:51

She invented putting stripes in grass.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Is that where she got the name Stagecoach for Mary from?

SPEAKER_05 10:56

That's why we're talking about her in Honorable Mentions. Because she invented putting stripes in grass.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Wow. Or maybe not.

SPEAKER_05 11:04

Shall we continue and find out?

SPEAKER_03 11:06

Let's see what happens.

SPEAKER_05 11:08

In 1884, Mother Amadeus Amadeus, Amadeus, Amadeus Amadeus, Amadeus, Amadeus, Amadeus, or Amadeus, calls to found St. Peter's mission for Native American girls in the wild territory of Cascade, Montana.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Really?

SPEAKER_05 11:28

So she was sent off to go there. Although distraught to see her close friend leave, Mary remained in Toledo, Toledo. Until a year later. Yeah, because I don't know how to say it. I don't want to offend her.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Yeah Leto didn't know say that either, do you, but never mind.

SPEAKER_05 11:45

What did I say?

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Year lato.

SPEAKER_05 11:49

Although distraught to see her close friend leave, Mary remained until a year later when she received news that mother Madeus Amadeus, etc., was bravely ill.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Oh. It's perhaps because of the soap. It's perhaps because of the soap. Right. You're having a few. Native Americans, this is a true fact, Stephen. They used to use urine and let it ferment in a pot or in a bucket with ash until it got to a certain stage and then they used that as soap, I think.

SPEAKER_05 12:26

So mother bambadeas bambodeas.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

Yep. She probably washed her hands when you were just talking to these some of these Native Americans.

SPEAKER_05 12:34

But why wouldn't she have soap?

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Because the Native American people don't have soap, did they?

SPEAKER_05 12:39

She was a Native American person. She didn't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

Spoke to someone and gone round the house for a cup of tea or a bit of cake or something, and they said, Oh, just wash your hands. And she's like, poo, it's a bit vinegary. You just wanted to show off. Yeah. I only found out because I was trying to find out who did the longest wee in the world. It was a man and it was eight minutes long.

SPEAKER_05 12:58

Toxic O'Grady.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

No, the stickiest bogey.

SPEAKER_05 13:04

And you don't remember his name?

SPEAKER_03 13:06

No, I don't want to. It's not important.

SPEAKER_05 13:08

In 1884, Mother Amadeus Amadeus, etc., was called to found St. Peter's mission for Native American girls in the wild territory of Cascade Montana. We've done this.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:20

Although distraught to see her close friend leave, Mary remained until a year later when she received news that Mother Amadeus Amadeus was gravely ill. It had nothing to do with soap. Mary quickly travelled to St. Peter's, where she found the Mother Superior battling pneumonia, which has nothing to do with soap made out of p and stayed by her side nursing her back to health. You still were hello, Neil!

SPEAKER_03 13:49

Think so.

SPEAKER_05 13:51

Oh, you're a bit taken aback.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Your language.

SPEAKER_05 13:54

Quickly travelled to St. Peter's where she found the Mother Superior battling pneumonia, which has nothing to do with PP. Okay. And stayed by her side nursing her back to health. For the next ten years, Mary remained and worked at the mission. She tended the garden, raised chickens, and hauled heavy supplies from distant towns, all jobs regarded as man's work. But not for Mary. For a long time it was a happy and tranquil existence.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

That's good.

SPEAKER_05 14:24

But volatile combination of Mary's temper and the rough and tumble environment of the wild, wild quest. It was bound to explode, and it did. Oh no. In 1894, Mary had a gunfight with a male co-worker at St. Peter's Mission.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Why?

SPEAKER_05 14:46

The man's name has been lost to time.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

He's pretty embarrassed.

SPEAKER_05 14:50

It's funny naming it has been lost to time. That's what he was called. He was a janitor answerable to Mary, and the incident occurred after he said he wasn't about to take orders from no n-word. I know. The story goes that a ricochet bullet struck the man in the butoks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Deserved it.

SPEAKER_05 15:14

In his another regions.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Deserved it.

SPEAKER_05 15:17

Another simply says that Mary shot him in the bum. Same area, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:24

Either way, she was unhurt and he couldn't sit down for over a month. Shouldn't think he could. Shouldn't think he could, that sort of language.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Yeah, certainly. Potty mouth. But he deserved it.

SPEAKER_05 15:34

He did deserve it. Following the incident, the local bishop ordered Mary's dismissal from her job at the mission. Why? Well, because you don't argue, you can't bash the bishop. Not supposed. Not for the violence itself, but because her behaviour was considered unladylike.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Yeah, bash the bishop is, haven't it?

SPEAKER_05 15:53

Yes. That's a good point well made. She set up a tavern in Cascade where she enhanced her hard drinking, hard swearing, hard hitting, and quick on the draw reputation. But it was a softer side that saw her offering free meals to those who couldn't afford to pay that led to the closure of the establishment within ten months.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

She's giving it all away.

SPEAKER_05 16:15

People were taking advantage of, she think, weren't they?

SPEAKER_03 16:17

Yeah, I think so. Sounds like it is. Yeah, I'm struggling.

SPEAKER_05 16:26

Don't you worry, she said. But Mary wasn't out of work for Long Neil.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

No.

SPEAKER_05 16:31

At almost sixty-three years old, her true calling had finally arrived.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Ooh. What did she do?

SPEAKER_05 16:40

She became a game show presenter on CBS.

SPEAKER_03 16:45

Did she?

unknown 16:45

No.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

It was a game show, please.

SPEAKER_05 16:48

No, she didn't. She entered a competition though.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:51

It didn't involve crayons, and it didn't involve trying to beat small children by pinning your crayons picture to a wall. She entered a competition to win a coveted Star Root Mail contract, which was a grueling test of skill.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Starroot Mail?

SPEAKER_05 17:08

Identified by three stars on US postal registers. Starroots or routes, if you're an American and can't speak the King's English.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 17:17

There's two words Americans can't say. One is root. Call it a route. And the other one is mirror.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

Mirror. Or aluminium either. Can't even say that, can they?

SPEAKER_05 17:27

Well, to be fair, they Yeah, but they invented that.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

So let them have that one.

SPEAKER_05 17:33

But um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

They can't say squirrel either.

SPEAKER_05 17:37

Hey, war, go and look in the mirror.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Look in the mirror, there's a squirrel.

SPEAKER_05 17:42

A squirrel. Yeah, that's true. Squirrel's another one.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Squirrel.

SPEAKER_05 17:46

Identified by three stars on US postal registers, star routes or routes, were the names given to the rough trails between towns and outposts. Because this was the wild, wild quest.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

Because there's a chance of a robbery.

SPEAKER_05 18:02

There could be a chance of a robbery. Contracts were awarded by the postmaster general to a bidder who guaranteed faithful performance delivering the mail. It was said that Mary was awarded the job because she was the fastest applicant to hitch a team of six horses. Six horses? Don't know what she hitched them to.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

Presumably a cat or some sort of doing it on the shelf with some skis, probably.

SPEAKER_05 18:26

Could then or whether she hitched them, I think got them married. So there was three weddings, or whether there was six horses, six brides for six horses.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

There's a musical there somewhere.

SPEAKER_05 18:37

We'll work on that later. Yes. That made her the only second woman to work as a contractor for the US Postal Service and the first African American woman.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Ooh, that's a very big feat for her.

SPEAKER_05 18:52

She probably has got very big feet because she was a quite large lady, yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:56

I don't see what the relevance is there.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 18:59

My Sherlock Holmes type abilities would tell me that the other lady working for the US Postal Service wasn't an African American. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

Because so I could see the workings out on that one.

SPEAKER_05 19:14

Mary was the first African American. But I wouldn't go as far as to say that the other lady was a white person because she may have been Hispanic or Chinese. All we know is that she wasn't African American. Okay. So don't make that stretch. Now, Neil. Hello, Neil.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Oh sure.

SPEAKER_05 19:34

Delivering mail back then was not a simple task. This was this was the Wild West after all.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Yes. Yeah. So there were no letterboxes.

SPEAKER_05 19:44

For there were no letterboxes, yes. Couriers battled blizzards, floods, and the sheer arduous task of controlling a stagecoach that could weigh over a ton, or two thousand four hundred pounds, or one thousand and eighty-eight kilograms for people who like it broken down as a lot of post. And that was before the mail was loaded.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

No.

SPEAKER_05 20:09

Yes. All while steering horses as well, in Mary's case, a moor called Moses, as well as the horses, across tricky unmarked terrain. They were vulnerable to wildlife, bandits, thieves, and encounters with Native American tribes and their pee pee soaps.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Really? Bandits. I know. Why would you want to pinch someone else's letters?

SPEAKER_05 20:36

What's the difference between a bandit and a thief?

SPEAKER_03 20:39

You have to wear a mask around your face.

SPEAKER_05 20:40

I see. Well, Neil, I'm going to guess here that she she wasn't only delivering letters. I guess that she was also delivering packages, and the packages would have contained things. Sometimes perhaps money, government bonds, or rights to the ownership of mines and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Not not pizzas and stuff, uh not Uber Eats.

SPEAKER_05 21:02

No, she wouldn't have been delivering pizzas. For Mary, these dangers were magnified as an African American woman, let alone an unaccompanied African American woman, out there on the trail, she faced heightened risks of running into murderous, prejudiced, and misogynistic attitudes.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

I can imagine. But then you could look at it the other way, and I might think, well, this woman must be scary because she's on her own.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

Well, yes, but you take your chances. Mary, do you remember Mary?

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Just about, yes, same.

SPEAKER_05 21:35

She took to carrying multiple weapons, including an ever-present 38 Smith and Wesson. 38 of them. No, 38 calibre Smith and Wesson. So when Clint Eastwood comes up to you and says, Do you know what this is? This is a 44 Magnum. He's talking about the calibre of his gun, and the 44 would blow your head clean off, as Dirty Harry is quite keen on telling people. This is a thirty-eight Smith and my son. So not that much smaller, but it would still do you some nasty damage. It wouldn't exactly let you sit down again if you were shot in your Batox, for example.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

It'd perhaps shoot you another eight button.

SPEAKER_05 22:16

But for whatever the obstacle, Mary always rose to the occasion, Neil. Dutifully delivering the mail for eight long, dangerous years, no matter what, helping to connect remote settlers, miners, and the outposts that depend on her crucial exchanges.

SPEAKER_03 22:36

Missives.

SPEAKER_05 22:37

Yeah, it's a good word, that in it. I wonder if she had a black and white cat.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Well, I didn't.

unknown 22:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

I don't think she had the red van though.

SPEAKER_05 22:44

Probably not, no.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

No. But her name wasn't Pat either, was it?

SPEAKER_05 22:47

Yeah, it didn't really rhyme, does it?

SPEAKER_03 22:48

No. Post person Mary.

SPEAKER_05 22:50

Hello, Pat. On a 34 mile round trip route or route between Cascade and St. Peter's Mission, Montana, she never ever missed a single day, regardless of the conditions.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 23:05

Driving around week? I presume so.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 23:10

I don't have her contract.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 23:13

There were no unions and stuff, was there? Driving rain, drifting snow, clogging murder, blistering heat, Neil. Mary would not be stopped. When the snow was too deep for her stagecoach, she would put on snow shoes and carry the heavy mail sacks on her back to complete the route on foot.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

She was determined.

SPEAKER_05 23:37

She was some old girl, wasn't she?

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Wasn't she?

SPEAKER_05 23:39

One time Mary was caught in a fierce blinding blizzard so strong she had no way of navigating her way home, so she walked back and forth all night to keep from freezing and staying vigilant to protect Moses and her horses. Moses, as you remember, was her mule.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

It was her ass.

SPEAKER_05 23:58

Yeah, not well. Yes, I suppose. In one way. But it it wasn't the biblical figure.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

No. But she had to part the part of the waves sometimes.

SPEAKER_05 24:08

Meaning?

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Yeah, because it's her ass when she goes to the toilet.

SPEAKER_05 24:12

Oh, I see. Okay. When all was clear, she dug her way out and reported for work in the morning.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

She was one determined lady.

SPEAKER_05 24:20

Imagine that. Where have you been? Well, I got stuck in a blizzard. Um, I've been up all night walking backwards and forwards. I've managed to keep my horses and mule here, Moses. Have you met Moses? I managed to keep him from freezing, and I've turned up ready to go without any sleep whatsoever, and you're having a go because I'm five minutes late here.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:42

On another occasion, a pack of wolves frightened her horses and overturned her wagon.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

Was that in the back was that delivery for the pack of wolves?

SPEAKER_05 24:52

No, it wasn't what she was delivering, no. This was a pack of wolves that frightened her horses and overturned her wagon. It says frightened her horses, doesn't mention Moses. He's probably chilled out.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:05

For a spiff. Yeah. He was probably having a spiff round the back of the coach. Mary stood watch all night to protect the male and waited it out until help arrived along the trail.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

Nice.

SPEAKER_05 25:19

It was the relentless determination, her reliability, and legendary speed that earned her the lasting, iconic nickname of Stagecoach Mary. Stagecoach Mary. But Mary's legacy wasn't just about her occupation, it was about the way she lived. She was a true trailblazer. I don't think we're gonna argue that, are we, Neil?

SPEAKER_03 25:39

I'm not going to argue that, Stephen, I don't want to, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 25:42

Who obliterated traditional gender boundaries. We're not gonna argue that, are we, Neil?

SPEAKER_03 25:47

I'm not gonna argue today, no.

SPEAKER_05 25:49

Oh. She never married, did Mary?

SPEAKER_03 25:52

She was married to the job.

SPEAKER_05 25:54

She openly wore trousers instead of dresses, which in polite nineteenth century American society kicked up a proper how do you do?

SPEAKER_03 26:02

I think it did if she had the world openly. You need to put a flies up.

SPEAKER_05 26:07

That's a good point. Well made that, yes. She openly wore trousers. If you do your flies up, put a belt on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

Hmm.

SPEAKER_05 26:17

Whether she wore undercrackers. Oh yes, she did.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

I would imagine so. She's a lady.

SPEAKER_05 26:23

Although never a mother herself, she loved children, and when she retired, Mary became one of the town's most popular babysitters.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

Uh-huh. I think they would do, they wouldn't dare tell her not to.

SPEAKER_05 26:37

Parents paid her as much as$1.50 a day to watch their children.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

Well, at least they knew she would their kids were to be safe.

SPEAKER_05 26:45

Exactly. Or shot in the buttocks.

SPEAKER_03 26:48

Or shot in the buttocks, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:50

How much was$1.50 a day back then worth today if you were paying someone the equivalent?

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Um let's look realistically.$550.

SPEAKER_05 27:02

No. I'll give you a clue. It's between$57 and$59.$58? Yeah.$58 today, if you were paying that out. A day. A day for Mary.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

Oh that is it, really?

SPEAKER_05 27:19

Per kid.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

Per kid.

SPEAKER_05 27:21

Mary, being Mary, Mary Fields, she just used all the money to buy candy for the children.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 27:28

And one of those children was a boy who went by the name of Frank James Cooper.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Right.

SPEAKER_05 27:34

One day young Frank would grow up and win two Best Actor Academy Awards. Under the name of John Wayne. No, he was Marion Norrison. Um This fella kept his surname.

unknown 27:52

Cooper.

SPEAKER_05 27:53

Think of the film High Noon.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Tommy Cooper.

SPEAKER_05 27:56

Tommy Cooper was very English well, Welsh, wasn't he, but he's a very British. Oh just like no, Gary Cooper.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

No, don't even know him.

SPEAKER_05 28:05

You never heard of Gary Cooper, two-time Academy Award winner. He paid lots of cowboys in your black and white era.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

No, I wouldn't have it, then sorry.

SPEAKER_05 28:13

While babysitting and spoiling the local children, Mary opened a laundry to support herself financially. When a customer refused to pay his two dollar bill.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:24

So if we know one dollar, whatever it was, was fifty.

unknown 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:29

One dollar fifty was fifty-eight dollars. So you're talking, you know, a a considerable amount, I suppose, for a business to miss out on that.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

$70.

SPEAKER_05 28:38

Something like that, isn't it? This fella, he refused to pay his two dollar bill, she chased him down an alley and beat him up. She said when onlookers, she has said to him, You don't owe me two dollars no more.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

So she spoke.

SPEAKER_05 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

That's very good.

SPEAKER_05 29:01

Right, you ready? You don't owe me two dollars no more.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

That's better.

SPEAKER_05 29:09

You got that, have you?

SPEAKER_03 29:11

Yeah. That was really good.

SPEAKER_05 29:13

In uh later years she became a mascot for Cascade's baseball team and made buttonhole bouquets from a garden for each player. Those who made home runs received full bouquets.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

Did they?

SPEAKER_05 29:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

That was worth it then, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_05 29:31

Mary was so popular, the restaurants in town offered her free meals and the saloons let her drink at no charge.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

That sounds to me she's a bit like a gangster, but they're they're trying to you know she was walking in there and they were saying, Oh, don't uh don't charge her, let her have it.

SPEAKER_05 29:45

Well, it you'd think it's because she's a very, very nice person and a character around town and has this reputation, and that might be also part of it.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

I think so.

SPEAKER_05 29:56

They think, uh, it's Mary.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Yeah, give for it. Get her out.

SPEAKER_05 30:01

How much for my beer?

SPEAKER_03 30:03

Um the air slab.

SPEAKER_05 30:06

Don't don't hit me. Nineteen twelve, so just before quarter past seven, when her home and laundry burned down, the Cascade citizens volunteered to rebuild it. So she was very well respected.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

She was respected, wasn't she? She must have been getting on a bit at this time as as well, Stephen, in her in her age.

SPEAKER_05 30:26

Well, Neil, funny you should say that. Because sadly, on December the fifth, nineteen fourteen, time came for Mary to hitch a ride on the last stagecoach out of town.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

That's a nice saying.

SPEAKER_05 30:41

She was eighty-one or eighty-two years old, somewhere around there, but no one was sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

And she was still beating people up.

SPEAKER_05 30:48

So well, not anymore.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Well, not anymore, but just before that she was.

SPEAKER_05 30:52

Yeah. So many people attended a funeral that it was the largest the town had ever seen. In remembrance, citizens of Cascade raised money to have her buried in a cemetery along the road linking their town to St. Peter's mission. By then, Stagecoach Mary was already a legend, a foul mouthed, fist swinging, pistol backing black woman with the softest heart of gold, who against all odds had risen from slavery in the south to become a much loved character in a remote town in Montana.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

She deserves an honourable mention.

SPEAKER_05 31:31

Sagecoach Mary was as dependable as the rising sun, yet capable of striking fear into anyone, even nuns who walked on her grass.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Yeah. She's striking fear into me, just listen, just hearing about her.

SPEAKER_05 31:45

As movie legend Gary Cooper wrote in 1959, Mary Fields was born a slave, but lived to become one of the freest souls ever to draw breath or a 38.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

38 what?

SPEAKER_05 32:00

Gun, that's been said to be spoken about this.

unknown 32:04

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

She deserves a honourable mention.

SPEAKER_05 32:09

Yes, she does deserve an honorable mention. What a lady.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

What a lady. What a lady.

SPEAKER_05 32:14

That's a nice thing to say, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 32:16

It is a nice thing to say.

SPEAKER_05 32:17

Well, thank you, listener. I hope you found the story of Mary Fields, Stagecoach Mary, as fascinating as we did. What a lady.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

She wasn't one to be messed with, was she?

SPEAKER_05 32:32

She wasn't one to be messed with.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

Yeah, absolutely. To get up every day and do all that.

SPEAKER_05 32:38

Still legendary in Montana to this very day. Mary Fields, Stagecoach Mary. If listener, you have someone who's led even half the life of Mary Fields in your ancestry, in your current family, who went to your school, who lived in your town, who lived in down your street, wherever it could be.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

Wherever it could be.

SPEAKER_05 33:04

Could be any of that, couldn't it, Neil?

SPEAKER_03 33:06

Yeah, could be. Could be. Whoever dispenses your medication.

SPEAKER_05 33:11

Anyone at all that you think I'd like to see the boys, that's me and Neil. You still wear Neil.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

I'm here.

SPEAKER_05 33:19

If you want to see the boys, present an episode about that person, just get in touch on Neil Please.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

You can contact us by email at honorable mentionspod at gmail.com. You can also get us on your social medias at honorable mentionspod. And you can download it on any of your music streaming stations like Spotify or others are available where you'll be able to find us, Honorable Mentions Pod. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 33:52

And on Spotify, you can even send messages. So we can pick up your messages there, listen.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

And on Spotify, you can even send messages.

SPEAKER_05 34:01

Oh, there's a voice in my headphones. Well, thank you, listener. We do love joining you for these little episodes. Stagecoach Mary.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

Thank you for joining us in these lovely episodes of Honourable Mentions.

SPEAKER_05 34:15

Stagecoach Mary, your new favourite historical figure. Thank you, listener. We will leave you now with a goodbye from me.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

And it's a goodbye from him.

SPEAKER_05 34:25

Thank you. All together now. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

You know, they say that out there in the Montana wilderness, in that brief moment when the wind stills in their lives like over the bare grass meadows, just sometimes, if you close your eyes, you'll hear the distant brain of a friendly old mule. Good by the name of Moses. And then we like it, and we're going to be a little bit more.