Mary Fields, a.k.a “Stagecoach Mary,” was an imposing African-American woman who was the second female in the United States to manage a mail route. At a time when opportunities for black women in America were practically non-existent, Fields enjoyed more freedom than most white women – or men.
Fields was born as a slave in Tennessee in 1832. The Civil War gave her freedom and allowed her to enjoy a remarkable life. She was a slave and friend to an Ursuline sister named Mother Amadeus who went to the Montana Territory to establish St. Peter’s Convent near what became the town of Cascade. When she became ill with pneumonia in 1885, she asked Fields to come west and nurse her back to health, which she did.
Fields was a large woman, weighing in at over 200 pounds and standing six feet tall, she wore a .38 revolver strapped under her apron. She soon began doing work for the convent, such as hauling supplies and passengers by wagon from the railroad to the convent. One night, wolves attacked her wagon, spooking the horses. Fields, a crack shot, spent the night fighting off the wolves because she knew the sisters depended on the supplies.
Fields drank, swore, and shot with the best of men. She had a standing bet that she could knock a man out with one punch, and never lost any money on that score. She was the only woman in Cascade allowed to drink in the local bars. Fields enjoyed smoking cigars and arguing politics.
At the convent, she tended to gardens and chickens, and did the laundry. However, eventually her wild ways caught up to her, and was asked to leave the convent. Mother Amadeus arranged for Fields to have the mail route between Cascade and the convent. This made Fields the second woman in U.S. history to drive a mail route, and she faithfully delivered the mail every day for the next eight years, “never missing one” as her friend, actor Gary Cooper, remembered.
Eventually Fields gave up the mail route and resumed taking in laundry at her home. She tried twice to run a restaurant, but fed everyone regardless of whether they could pay or not, and went broke twice.
Fields died in 1914, and mourned by all who knew her – an African-American woman with more friends than most whites during the days of Jim Crow.