Armed with a rifle and dressed in the comfortable clothes of a man, this badass slave became the first black woman employed to carry the U.S. mail. At 200 pounds, she was said to be a match for any two men in Montana Territory. She had a standing bet that she could knock a man out with one punch, and she never lost a dime to anyone foolish enough to take her up on that bet. By order of the mayor, she was the only woman of reputable character in Cascade allowed to drink in the local bar, and while she enjoyed the privilege, she never drank to excess. She was often spotted smoking cigars in public, and she liked to argue politics with anyone.
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| Photograph of Mary Fields holding a rifle, ca. 1895. |
Mary Fields, also known as Stagecoach Mary and Black Mary, was born into slavery in either 1832 or 1833; her exact birthday is unknown. Her birthplace and other details about her early childhood are also unknown. What is known is that she worked for the Warner family in West Virginia in the years leading up to the Civil War. Fields was emancipated in 1863 or shortly after the Civil War; she then moved from West Virginia and went up the Mississippi River where she worked on steamboats.
Fields ended up in Ohio, specifically Toledo. There, she began working at Ursuline Convent of the Sacred Heart. There is debate over how and why Fields ended up working at the convent. Yet, what is known is that Fields’s gruff style was not something that fit into the serene calm that was the convent.
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| Mary Fields, once again, posing with her gun. |
During her time at the convent, Fields washed laundry, bought supplies, managed the kitchen, and grew and maintained the garden and grounds. Mary was known to lose her temper and was quick to yell at anyone who stepped on the grass after she had cut it.
It is unclear why Fields left Toledo. Many sources think that she moved to take care of an ill friend. Mother Amadeus Dunne, who had been Mother Superior in Toledo before moving West, had fallen ill. Fields and Mother Amadeus were known friends. Some records date their friendship all the way back to the Warren family in West Virginia, though this claim is not substantiated.
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| Mary Fields in her garden in back of her cabin. |
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| Fields’ laundry in Cascade before it was destroyed by fire. |
Once she arrived West, Fields got to work. She mainly worked for Saint Peter’s Mission near Cascade, Montana where she did many of the jobs she had done before in Toledo. This mission was run by Ursuline nuns and was where Mother Amadeus Dunne resided. Fields performed maintenance and repair work. She also gardened and did the laundry. One major thing that Fields was also in charge of was the locating and delivery of supplies needed for the mission. Yet Fields had no official contract with the mission and nuns; thus, she was free to come and go as she pleased, taking additional work outside the mission.
Fields was unfortunately dismissed from the mission. This was due in part to her crass behavior, unruly temper and penchant for drinking and smoking in saloons with men. The final straw appears to involve an argument in which Fields and another mission janitor, a male, got into a fight and were agitated to the point that both drew guns. While neither ever fired their gun, this incident was enough to make the Bishop of the area demand for the nuns to relieve her duties.
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| St. Peter’s Mission in 1884, after construction of quarters for the Uruslines. Fields sitting on buckboard with her mule Moses, right; Nuns and Indian Children, left. |
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