Mary Fields, Black Mary, and ‘Stagecoach Mary

Mary Fields, Black Mary, and ‘Stagecoach Mary’

(1832-1914)
Mary Fields, Black Mary, and ‘Stagecoach Mary’ (1832-1914) are all one of the same person. Mary was born a slave in Hickman County Tennessee and moved to the Great Falls, Montana area. Fields was the first female African American carrier for the mail service in Montana and entrepreneur. Her mail route by stagecoach was from Cascade, Montana to St. Peter's Mission, Montana

After the Civil War and emancipation Fields never married, and had no children. She lived by her wits and her strength. She traveled north to Ohio, settled in Toledo, and worked for the Catholic convent where she formed a strong bond with Mother Amadeus. The nuns of her early life were her family. When the nuns moved to Montana and Mary learned of Mother Amadeus' failing health, she went west to help out. Having nursed Mother Amadeus back to health, she decided to stay and help build the St. Peter's mission school. She protected the nuns.

In 1895, although approximately 60 years old, Fields was hired as a mail carrier since she was the fastest job applicant to hitch a team of six horses. She drove the route with horses and a mule named Moses and never missed a day for 8 years carrying the U. S. Mail and other important documents that helped settle the wild open territory of central west Montana. It was in this aptitude that she became a legend in her own time known as 'Stagecoach Mary' for her unfailing reliability. This was despite adverse conditions that would have discouraged the most hardened frontiersmen of her time. Sometimes she would deliver the mail through heavy snowfalls on foot...once walking 10 miles back to the depot. All by herself, she never missed a day for 8 years,

She also owned several businesses in Cascade County Montana.

Field 's was a cigar smoking gun-totin' Black Woman in the American Wild West who was six feet tall, heavy, tough, short-tempered, two-fisted, powerful, and she carried a pair of six-shooters and an eight or ten-gauge shotgun who had no fear of man, nor beast, and this sometimes got her into trouble. But she loved the children of Cascade County and supported the local baseball team as their number one fan. When turned away from the mission because of her behavior, the nuns financed her in opening her own a cafe. Mary's big heart drove her business into the ground several times because she would feed the hungry.


Mary would frequented saloons drinking whiskey with the men, a privilege only given to her, as a woman. Fields was an extremely popular person in Virginia City, Montana, so much so, that a Virginia City ordinance was enacted that made it legal for her to enter a saloon, a place forbidden by law to any other self-respecting woman. However, not even this fact, sealed Mary's credentials given to her, her credentials boasted that, “She would knockout any man with one punch”, a claim which she proved true.

When she retired she became friends with the acclaimed actor Gary Cooper who told a story about her in 1959 which appeared in Ebony Magazine that same year. She was a respected public figure in Cascade, and on her birthday each year the town closed its schools to celebrate. She died of liver failure in 1914 when she was a little bit over the age of 80.


Despite Mary's hardness, she had another side of her, a kindness so strong, even today, in the beginning of the 21st Century, the town of Cascade, Montana, and other surrounding communities celebrate her birthday. When she died in 1914 there was no shortage of pallbearers for the tough but kind black woman who had befriended generations of local children. She was buried in a small cemetery alongside the road between Cascade and St. Peter's Mission that she had traveled so many times during her life.

Mary Fields,Black Mary, and ‘Stagecoach Mary
(1832-1914)
All one of the same person. Mary was born a slave in Hickman County Tennessee and moved to the Great Falls, Montana area. Fields was the first female African American carrier for the mail service in Montana and entrepreneur. Her mail route by stagecoach was from Cascade, Montana to St. Peter's Mission, Montana

After the Civil War and emancipation Fields never married, and had no children. She lived by her wits and her strength. She traveled north to Ohio, settled in Toledo, and worked for the Catholic convent where she formed a strong bond with Mother Amadeus. The nuns of her early life were her family.


In 1895, although approximately 60 years old, Fields was hired as a mail carrier since she was the fastest job applicant to hitch a team of six horses. She drove the route with horses and a mule named Moses and never missed a day for 8 years carrying the U. S. Mail and other important documents that helped settle the wild open territory of central west Montana. It was in this aptitude that she became a legend in her own time known as 'Stagecoach Mary' for her unfailing reliability. She also owned several businesses in Cascade County Montana.
Field 's was a cigar smoking gun-totin' Black Woman in the American Wild West who was six feet tall, heavy, tough, short-tempered, two-fisted, powerful, and she carried a pair of six-shooters and an eight or ten-gauge shotgun who had no fear of man, nor beast, and this sometimes got her into trouble. Mary would frequented saloons drinking whiskey with the men, a privilege only given to her, as a woman. However, not even this fact, sealed Mary's credentials given to her, her credentials boasted that, “She would knockout any man with one punch”, a claim which she proved true.

But she loved the children of Cascade County and supported the local baseball team as their number one fan.

When she retired she became friends with the acclaimed actor Gary Cooper who told a story about her in 1959 which appeared in Ebony Magazine that same year. Despite Mary's hardness, she had another side of her, a kindness so strong, even today, in the beginning of the 21st Century, the town of Cascade, Montana, and other surrounding communities celebrate her birthday. When she died of liver failure in 1914 there was no shortage of pallbearers for the tough but kind black woman who had befriended generations of local children. She was buried in a small cemetery alongside the road between Cascade and St. Peter's Mission that she had traveled so many times during her life.