Nicknames in the Old West had to be earned, not given. “Stagecoach Mary” was no exception. In 1895, “Stagecoach Mary” Fields became the first Black woman contracted by the postal service to deliver the U.S. mail. With her guns and tough demeanor, Fields unfailingly protected her stagecoach and her mail route from wolves and bandits alike.
Born enslaved in Tennessee in the early 1830s, once Fields was emancipated at the the end of the Civil War, she traveled around working odd jobs until she eventually made her way to a convent in Toledo, Ohio, working as a groundskeeper and game hunter, and eventually moved to Cascade, Montana and did the same at a different convent.
After clashing with several nuns who objected to her smoking, drinking and gun-toting gruffness, Fields accepted a donated stagecoach from a sympathetic Mother Superior and used it to pursue a new line of work in Cascade.
Mary never missed a day in the eight years she had her postal route – when she couldn’t drive her stagecoach through the snow, she would don snowshoes and trek to deliver the mail. After retiring from her postal service, Mary established her own laundry business in town. She died in 1914 and is buried in Cascade.
To learn more about Stagecoach Mary, read Deliverance Mary Fields, First African American Woman Star Route Mail Carrier in the United States: A Montana Historyby Miantae Metcalf McConnell from 2016, the 2019 children’s picture book Fearless Mary: Mary Fields, American Stagecoach Driver written by Tami Charles and illustrated by Claire Almon or African American Women of the Old West by Tricia Wagner on which Mary graces the cover.
You can also listen to the very informative 2021 episode about Mary on the podcast Black Cowboys.
Sources:
- https://postalmuseum.si.edu/stagecoach-mary-fields
- https://www.nps.gov/people/mary-fields.htm
- https://www.history.com/.amp/news/meet-stagecoach-mary-the-daring-black-pioneer-who-protected-wild-west-stagecoaches
*This year marks the 100th anniversary since Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week in February 1926. Fifty years after that, President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month. In 1986, Congress passed a law designating February as Black History Month across the U.S.
To learn more about Stagecoach Mary, you can read