"Stagecoach" Mary Fields

American Catholic History

Noelle & Tom Crowe

History, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Education

5 • 724 Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Stagecoach" Mary Fields was a hard-drinking, gun-toting, street-brawling black woman in the Montana frontier. She also was a kind-hearted guardian to the children of the Montana frontier, including native children, and she was a dear friend to the Ursuline nuns who had set up a mission near Cascade, Montana. In spite of her hard work, dedication to those in need, and generosity, she was treated poorly by those in positions of power. She spent eight years as a mail carrier running a Star Route in Montana. She was good at it, but some were upset by how good she was at it and gave her the nickname "Stagecoach Mary" as a way to denigrate her service. After leaving the Star Route she took on other jobs to make ends meet. While some resented her abilities, most loved her and appreciated her generosity and hard work. When she died in 1814 her funeral was one of the largest that Cascade, Montana had ever seen.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to American Catholic History, brought to you by the support of listeners like you.
0:11.9	If you like American Catholic History, please become a supporter, an Americancathicester.org
0:17.8	slash support. Also, if you don't already, be sure to follow the podcast and give us a five-star rating and a
0:25.8	great review wherever you get your podcasts.
0:29.0	I'm Noelle Heister Crow.
0:30.3	And I'm Tom Crow.
0:31.6	Today we're talking about a gun-toating, cigar smoking, whiskey drinking, punch-throwing,
0:37.0	mountain of a black woman,
0:39.3	who is actually a very tender motherly lady.
0:43.2	Yes, for all her manly abilities, Mary Fields was beloved of the children in the wild west of Montana,
0:49.9	and she was a dear friend of the Ursula and Nuns who were at work in that mission field.
0:54.8	Well, that's quite an introduction for today's subject.
0:57.7	Well, she was quite a woman.
0:59.2	She really was.
1:00.5	But she had to be because a number of people were not kind to her.
1:05.1	She was black, and she was a woman who did things that typically only men would do.
1:10.3	One of those things, driving a wagon to
1:12.8	deliver mail through the rough and often dangerous terrain of Montana, earned her her nickname,
1:18.4	Stagecoach Mary. Yes. Now, Stagecoach Mary, it's a nickname that she still bears today, but it
1:24.7	apparently was not given to her as a compliment. It was actually a way to
1:28.8	kind of denigrate the really impressive service that she provided. But as time has gone on,
1:34.0	and the reason why driving a stagecoach was less impressive than driving a mail wagon has faded
	...

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