To celebrate Black History Month, one of our members sent in this blog about Stage Coach Mary. 

I've always been fascinated by the American Wild West. But unlike many people, my fascination has never been with the cowboys and gunslingers portrayed in the films that were shown on Saturday afternoons when I was a child. For me, it has always been the story of Native American people and, above all, the injustice inflicted upon them.

That interest started with my mum, as so many things did. Growing up in the 1930s, while other children chose to write their school essays on subjects suggested by their teachers, Florence Nightingale, Alexander Fleming and the like, my mother went off script. She wrote about the injustices suffered by Native Americans.

I think that early influence stayed with me. Years later through that interest, I came across the extraordinary story of Mary Fields.

Mary was born in Tennessee around 1832 and, tragically, was born into slavery. The abolition of slavery eventually brought an end to that part of her life, and once free, Mary made her way west. To me, she is one of the most remarkable women of the American frontier. Known as ‘Stagecoach Mary’, she was a Black woman who simply refused to allow the expectations of her time to define what she could, or couldn't, do.

Stage Coach Mary

In 1895, when she was already in her sixties, Mary secured a contract as a Star Route mail carrier.

A Star Route carrier was essentially an independent contractor responsible for collecting and delivering mail between communities where there was no conventional postal service. Mary's route ran between Cascade and St Peter's Mission in Montana: a 34-mile round trip through some seriously unforgiving country.

There were no cars. No proper roads. Just a coach, horses and rough terrain to navigate. And Mary didn't merely deliver the mail. She protected it.

Carrying a rifle and revolver, she travelled through snow and remote country where wolves, bears, cougars and bandits were genuine hazards. When the snow became too deep for her horses, she strapped on snowshoes and carried the mail herself. According to the stories told about her, she never missed a day of delivery during her eight years on the route.

A woman with a reputation

Mary was certainly not what society might have expected a woman to be at the time. She smoked cigars. She drank whisky. She wore practical clothes rather than the elaborate dresses expected of women in the Victorian era. And she had a famously fiery temper.

One story from her time working as a forewoman at St Peter's Mission, tells of a man who took exception to receiving orders from a woman and, more particularly, from a Black woman who was being paid more than he was. An argument followed. Apparently, the man knocked Mary to the ground and reached for his weapon.

Mary drew her own pistol. A full-blown gunfight followed. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt although the Bishop's laundry apparently wasn't quite so lucky. It was left riddled with bullet holes, described rather wonderfully as being ‘like a Swiss cheese’.

Mary also had a short fuse when it came to the convent lawns. She took great pride in cutting them and apparently wasn't impressed if anyone dared walk across the freshly mown grass. As one nun reportedly put it “May God help anyone who walks across the lawn after Mary’s cut it.”

A soft heart beneath the tough exterior

For all the stories about Mary's temper, she was also remembered as a remarkably kind and generous woman.

She was particularly fond of children and would regularly spend her meagre wages buying them peppermint sticks and fresh fruit. She also had a reputation for standing up for children when they were being bullied.

At one point, Mary briefly owned a restaurant. It didn't last. Not because the food wasn't good, but because Mary apparently couldn't bring herself to charge people for it. That perhaps tells us as much about her character as the stories about her gunfights do.

When Mary died, the people of the town came together to collect enough money to pay for a proper funeral. Later, they celebrated her life by holding a day of celebration on her birthday.

A woman ahead of her time

Having a fiery temper and smoking cigars may not make Mary Fields the most conventional role model.

But perhaps that's missing the point. Mary lived at a time when society was determined to tell people where they belonged, and particularly where Black women belonged. Racism and sexism sought to dictate the boundaries of her life. Mary simply ignored them.

She travelled where she pleased. She worked where she pleased. She wore what she pleased. She carried a gun, drove a mail coach, earned her own money and refused to accept that being a Black woman meant she should make herself smaller. Her story mattered then because she challenged those boundaries simply by living beyond them.

And it matters now because women like Mary remind us that history isn't only made by the famous, often white, men whose names fill our textbooks. Sometimes history is made by the women who simply refused to stay where society put them.