System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Calamity Jane Burke, Adventurer
May 01, 1852 - August 01, 1903
"Calamity" Jane, Hero, Frontiersperson, Marksman, Dance Hall Girl, Indian Fighter and Adventurer. She was born Martha Jane Cannary Burke, in Princeton, Missouri, on May 1, 1852. She went to Deadwood, Dakota, during the Gold Rush in the Black Hills. There, after the 1876 murder of Wild Bill Hickok, she claimed that he was the father of her child and that they'd been married. (The child, if it existed, was said to have been born September 25, 1873, and given up for adoption.)
For a while she worked as a Pony Express rider delivering the U.S. mail. She was noted her habit of dressing in men's clothing. She nursed victims of a smallpox epidemic in 1878, also dressed as a man. She was something of a local legend because the Sioux Indians left her alone (as well as because of her other eccentricities). She married Clinton Burke in 1891 after they'd lived together for at least six years.
In her later years, she appeared in Wild West shows, including the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, around the country, featuring her riding and shooting skills. But her chronic drunkenness and fighting caused many problems, and after she was fired in 1901 from a show, she retired to Deadwood, where she died of pneumonia on August 1. 1903, at the age of 51. She was buried next to Wild Bill Hickok.
