Poor jane

Martha Jane Cannari was born on May 1, 1852 in Princeton, Missouri, within the county of Mercer. Her parents, Robert and Charlotte Cannari, were ranked in the 1860 census to live about 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Princeton, in Ravenna. Martha Jane was the eldest of six children in the family, she had two brothers and three sisters. In 1865, Robert gathered his family and moved on a wagon train from Missouri to Virginia City, Montana. Charlotte died on her way to Blackfoot, Montana, from pneumonia. After arriving in Virginia City in the spring of 1866, Robert took his six children on a further journey to Salt Lake City , Utah. They arrived there in the summer, and Robert tried to farm on 40 acres (160,000 m²) of land. They were there only a year before his death in 1867. Martha Jane, therefore, at the age of 15 (or even at the age of 11) was forced to take on the role of head of the family, again loaded all the property onto a wagon train and went with her brothers and sisters to Fort Bridger in the Territory of Wyoming. They arrived there in May 1868. From there, they took the Union Pacific Railway to Piedmont, Wyoming.

In Piedmont, Martha Jane took on any job to provide for her large family. She worked as a dishwasher, cook, waitress, dancer, nanny and oxen driver. Finally, in 1870, she found a job as a scout (scout) for the army at Fort Russell; she wore a military uniform, but it is still not entirely clear whether she was officially a member of the US military. During this period, according to some sources, she also engaged in prostitution in Fort Laramie. Sources from this period describe Marta as “extremely attractive” and “beautiful black-eyed girl”. Martha Jane received almost no education and was almost illiterate, although, apparently, she could read and write at some level. She soon turned to the rough, mostly in the open, the life of an adventurer on the Great Plains.

Martha Jane participated in several military campaigns during long conflicts with the Indians, the indigenous people of the continent - Indian wars . Her first campaign was supposedly the campaign of 1872 under the command of General Custer, when Custer, Myles, Terry and Crook and their troops were engaged in suppressing riots in Sheridan (present-day Wyoming), in the area of ​​Goose Creek. Allegedly, this was her only opportunity to meet Custer, although this seems unlikely.

According to her own words, in the course of one of the battles, in the same year 1872, she saved the life of Captain Egan at the risk of herself, catching him, wounded, on his horse, and taking him to a safe fort. It was as if he had known her “Bedana Jane, the heroine of the plains,” and she retained that nickname. After this campaign in 1874, the detachment in which she allegedly served was sent to Fort Caster, where he remained until the spring of the following year. Neither in this campaign, nor in others (in which Custer and Crook participated) she did not participate under the command of Custer, and soon she was ordered to leave the fort.

Captain Jack Crawford (1847–1917), a veteran of the Indian Wars , who served under the command of Generals Wesley Merritt and George Crook , in an interview in 1904 stated that Poor Jane “... never served in any capacity under the command of General Crook , so is General Miles. She never saw lynchings and never participated in fights with Indians. She was just a notorious character, slutty and devilish, but she had a certain generosity that made her popular. ”

It is possible, indeed, that she exaggerated or even fabricated the history of her nickname - historians have analyzed a lot of evidence of Jane’s tendency to exaggerate and outright lies about her exploits when analyzing her autobiography. Even then, during her life, not everyone accepted her stories as truth. There is a widespread belief that in fact she got this nickname as a result of threats to the men who insulted her about the “terrible judgment”. One of the few proven stories involving Bedova Jane dates back to 1875, when her squad was sent by General Crook to the Bighorn River. Carrying important reports, she swam across Platt and galloped at a maximum speed of 90 miles (145 km) to deliver them, being wet and frozen. After that, she became very sick. After recovering for several weeks, she traveled to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and then, in July 1876, traveled north to the freight train to where she first met Wild Bill Hickok .

Poor Jane accompanied Newton-Jenny's expedition to the Black Hills (Black Hills) in 1875, along with California Joe and Valentine McGillicddy.

In 1876, Beda Jane settled in the Deadwood, South Dakota, area of ​​the Black Hills. There she became friends and from time to time she worked for Douro Dufran, one of the most famous pirates of the Wild West, as a prostitute, cook and washerwoman. She met with Wild Bill Hicock and Charlie Atter, arriving with them in the same carriage of a freight train to Deadwood. Jane admired Hiccock (even falling in love) and was simply obsessed with his personality and his life.

After Hicock was killed during a poker game on August 2, 1876, she claimed that she was the wife of Hickok and that Hickok was the father of her child, Jane, who was born on September 25, 1873, and which she later gave to Jim O'Neil. and his wife. There are no records that would confirm the birth of a child, and her whole story about Hikok's romantic relationship can be fiction. At a time when the intended child was born, Jane worked as a scout for the army. At the time of his death, Hicock was briefly married to Agnes Lake Thatcher.

However, on September 6, 1941, the US Department of Social Services did provide assistance to the elderly Jane Hickok Burghart McCormick (her third husband), who claimed to be the legal child of Martha Jane Cannary and James Butler Hickok, and subsequently provided proof that Wild Bill and Bedana Jane were married in Benson, Montana, on September 25, 1873, as recorded in a church book with signatures from two priests and many witnesses. Martha Jane also claimed that after Hickok’s death, she went to look for his killer, Jack McColl, armed with a meat cleaver and left the gun in her house while in a state of passion. However, she never met McCall. After McCall was hanged for his crime, Jane continued to live in the Deadwood area for some time, and once she helped rescue several passengers on the wheel stage, distracting several lowland Indians who were chasing him. John Slaytor, a stage coach, was killed during the pursuit, and Jane took control of the wagon, managing to drive it to Deadwood. Also at the end of 1876, Jane cared for the victims of the smallpox epidemic in the area of ​​Deadwood.

In 1881, she bought a ranch west of Miles City, Montana, where she kept a tavern. After marrying Texan Clinton Burke and moving to Boulder, she again tried her luck in this matter. In 1887, she had a daughter, Jane, whom she gave to foster parents. In 1895 she divorced Burke.

In 1893, Bedaway Jane began to appear in Buffalo Bill's "The Wild West Show" as a stuntman and rider. She also participated in the Pan American Exhibition. By this time, Jane was in a state of depression and suffered from alcoholism. Jane's addiction to drinking was known even in her young years. For example, on June 10, 1876, she rented a horse and cart in Cheyenne to go to Fort Russell and back, but Jane was so drunk that she did not notice how she had gone astray, and as a result, after traveling 90 miles, she turned up in Fort Laramie.

At the turn of the century, Dora Dufran was still influential when Jane returned to the Black Hills in 1903. Over the next several months, Jane made a living and shelter by cooking and washing for the prostitutes of Dora’s brothel. In July, she traveled to Terry, South Dakota. While staying at the Colloway Hotel on August 1, 1903, she died at the age of 51. It was reported that she was intoxicated on the train and became very ill. The train conductor took her to the cabin, where she soon died. In her belongings they found a pack of letters to her daughter, which she never sent. Some of these letters were subsequently set to music by composer Libby Larsen.

Poor Jane was buried in Mount Moria Cemetery, Deadwood, South Dakota, next to Wild Bill Hickok, as stated in her will. The four men who buried her later said that Wild Bill Hicock had absolutely no use for Jane during his life, so they decided to play a posthumous joke, burying her forever next to him.

• 1953 - in the film “ Calamity Jane ” - the image of Jane was embodied by actress and singer Doris Day .
• 1966 - In the episode A Calamity Called Jane of the television series “ Days in Death Valley, ” Bedaway was played by Faye Spain .
• 2004-2006 - in the television series “ Deadwood ” Bedoune Jane played Robin Weigert (in all 36 episodes).

• Calamity Jane HistoryLink - Digital Deadwood
• Calamity Jane biography at Women's History
• Calamity Jane at cowgirls.com