Who Was "Calamity Jane"?

          The American frontier character called "Calamity Jane" was born Martha Jane Canary in Missouri in 1852. Her family moved to Virginia City, Montana, in 1865, where she grew up in mining camps and rough frontier communities.

           Calamity spent most of her time hunting with men, and was soon considered a remarkably good marks woman and a fearless rider for a girl so young.

          In 1870, she joined Gen. George Armstrong Custer -- who lead the ill-fated Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 -- as the Indian scout considered the most reckless and daring of his campaign through Arizona Territory.

          In 1876, Calamity appeared in Deadwood, South Dakota, dressed in men's clothes and boasting of her marksmanship.

           In 1872, she went to Fort Sanders, Wyoming, where she was ordered out to the Muscle Shell Indian outbreak, in which Generals Custer, Miles, Terry and Crook were engaged. It was during this time that she reportedly earned her nickname "Calamity" after saving one of the general's lives in an Indian skirmish.
By 1865, she was carrying the U.S. mail between Deadwood and Custer, a distance of 50 miles, over one of the roughest trails in the Black Hills country.

          In 1879, Calamity went to Fort Pierre, South Dakota, to drive mules.
In 1881, she returned to Wyoming and bought a ranch in the Yellowstone region, where she raised stock and cattle and kept a wayside inn.

           In 1885 in El Paso, Texas, she married Clinton Burk, and had a baby girl in 1887.
In her later years, Calamity toured the West in Wild Bill Hickok's burlesque show, performing trick riding and shooting stunts and appearing at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y.

          In 1903, Calamity Jane died in poverty and obscurity in Deadwood, where, at her request, she is buried beside Hickok, to whom she considered herself married.