Tennessee Slave or Don’t Mess With Mary

Tennessee Slave, Mary Fields, might have been born into Tennessee slavery, but folks eventually came to realize that you, Don’t Mess With Mary. Mary Fields, even during her Civil War bondage in Tennessee, proved to be an exceptional example of feminine courage and fortitude. She learned to read and write at an early age and developed a friendship with her master’s daughter, that would last nearly a lifetime and hold Mary in good stead over the years, including a totally different lifestyle after emancipation and the Civil War had ended.

Born into Tennessee slavery around 1832, on a plantation in Hickman County, Tennessee, according to some historians, she was owned by a Judge Dunne and grew up on his family farm. She became friends with his daughter, Dolly, who was around the same age. After the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, many ex-slaves left the plantations and farms of their former owners. Mary, however, stayed on with the Dunnes’ and helped with the post war transition.

Mary Fields eventually took advantage of her emancipation by migrating from her Tennessee home, to Toledo, Ohio, where she worked for the Ursuline Catholic Convent. Mary’s childhood companion Dolly had become a nun at the convent, known now as Sister Amadeus. Mary took care of the nuns as their personal maid, cook and nurse. At over 6′ tall and 200 pounds, there weren’t many chores around the convent that she couldn’t handle. In addition, based on her Tennessee plantation experience, Mary chopped wood, did rudimentary carpentry, and whatever else was necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the nuns’ enterprise.

In 1884 Mother Amadeus of the Ursuline Convent founded the St. Peter’s Catholic Mission School in Montana, west of Cascade. Three years later Mary Fields joined her there. For the next ten years she provided protection for the nuns and the school and drove a supply wagon hauling essential freight and other goods.

Mary Fields’s temper was as legendary as her ability to get hard jobs done. Indeed, one altercation almost proved her undoing. Bishop Filbus N. E. Berwanger fired Mary from her position with the nuns following a shootout with a cow puncher that left her unharmed and the cow puncher slightly wounded and greatly embarrassed. Mary never allowed social conventions or expectations of feminine behavior to circumscribe her. Rather, she carved a space for herself that allowed her the freedom to exploit both her penchant for hard work and her desire to help others.

She settled in the town of Cascade County, Montana and opened a restaurant that soon failed because Mary refused to charge anyone that was hungry, whether they could pay or not. In addition, Mary was really a pretty poor cook and so for a brief time she subsisted by doing laundry. She never made enough to be considered rich, but she was reasonably content. Her zest for life enthralled the local community. When her laundry burned down, the townsfolk pitched in and helped her rebuild it. The owner of the Cascade Hotel and the local saloons all allowed Mary Fields ready access to their facilities, privileges denied to women in general.

The Native Americans of the territory referred to Mary Fields as White Crow because  “she acts like a white woman but has black skin.” 

Even though the sisters had tried their best to smooth Fields’ rough edges by inviting her to participate in services and practice her Catholic faith, Fields preferred the rougher company of the hard-drinking men of the territory. Mary could drink any man under the table and swore with the best of them, fought them with her formidable fists, smoked cigars, swapped stories and became a crack shot with revolver and rifle. She also worked as hard as she played, Mary also became known as one of the only women freight and stagecoach guards in the country, thus gaining her handle as Stagecoach Mary.

Stagecoach Mary built quite a reputation in the Montana Territory as one gal that you Don’t Want to Mess With. The Great Falls Examiner newspaper once cited this hard-drinking, quick-tempered behemoth as having “broken more noses than any other person in Montana,” and nobody ever debated the claim.

In 1895, at 60 years old, the ex-Tennessee slave, landed a job carrying the United States Mail. Since she had always been so independent and determined, this work was perfect for her, and quickly she developed a reputation for delivering letters and parcels no matter what the weather, nor how rugged the terrain. She and her mule, Moses, plunged through anything, from bitterly raw blizzards to wilting heat, reaching remote miner’s cabins and other outposts with important mail which helped to accommodate the land claim process, as well as other matters needing expeditious communication. Even if the snow was deep, Stagecoach Mary would don snowshoes and carry the mail pouches on her back. These efforts on her part helped greatly to advance the development of a considerable portion of central Montana, a contribution for which she is given little credit.

Stagecoach Mary retired in 1901 and opened another laundry service in Cascade, Montana, however she didn’t do much laundry and spent much or her retirement baby sitting the local children. As the only African-American resident of Cascade, she was quite the celebrity and had built quite a unique reputation. Mary became friends with actor Gary Cooper, who described her in a magazine article thusly, “Born a slave somewhere in Tennessee, Mary lived to become one of the freest souls ever to draw a breath, or a .38.”  In her golden years, Mary got free food and booze anywhere she went, and went to every single home game that the Cascade baseball team ever played.

Mary died of liver failure in 1914 and is interred in the Hillside Cemetery at Cascade, Montana.

Tennessee Slave, Mary Fields, was not any ordinary female domestic or subservient ex-slave. Mary knew that in order to survive and prosper she had to make her own unique mark on her world and remind everyone that they Don’t Want To Mess With Mary.

Bummer