Nat Love a.k.a. "Deadwood Dick" and Mary Fields a.k.a. "Stagecoach Mary" complement one another, though they never met. Above are their photographs and below are their stories.
Nat Love (1854-1921)
Nat (pronounced "Nate") was born into slavery in Davidson County, Tennessee. His family was emancipated after the Civil War and farmed their own land, but his father soon died. When Nat won a horse in a raffle, he sold it for $100, gave his mother $50, and left home with the rest to seek work in the West as a cowhand. He went to Dodge City, Kansas, and joined some cowboys who worked a ranch in the Texas panhandle. He received his nickname in 1876 when he won many contests at a rodeo in Deadwood, South Dakota, and rode away with the $200 prize. In 1872, he moved on to an Arizona ranch, and in 1877 was captured by Pima Indians, but escaped on a stolen pony. He broke horses, shot buffalo, delivered steers, wrangled mustangs, and survived cattle stampedes, a blizzard, and shootouts with rustlers. Nat didn't settle down until 1889, when he married and began a family. He supported them as a Pullman porter in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and finally southern California. Nat published his autobiography in 1907.Mary Fields (c. 1832-1914)
Mary Fields was born a slave in Tennessee (or by another account Arkansas), emancipated after the Civil War, worked as a chambermaid aboard the steamship Robert E. Lee, and served at convents in Toledo, Ohio, and in the pioneer community of Cascade, Montana. At the Montana convent, she transported visitors to and from the train station in the stage coach, washed clothes, tended a large garden, cared for several hundred chickens, and hauled supplies in a wagon - once having to fend off a pack of wolves overnight when the wagon overturned. As an adult, she had reached a height of 6' and a weight of 200lbs, and was a crack shot with the rifle and revolver she used to defend her postal route, a contract job which she secured in 1895 after the bishop had her removed from the convent because of her rough behavior. She drank (but not to excess), swore, and smoked cigars. She had a standing bet that she could knock a man out with a single punch and was said to have broken more noses than anyone else in central Montana. The fiercely independent African-American woman was both feared and admired by those who knew her. Mary had run a restaurant, but went broke extending credit to her customers. She took in laundry, babysat, and supported the local baseball team. She gave food to the poor, and in return the townspeople built her a new house when hers burned down in 1912. When she died, Mary had no lack of pallbearers.
