In 1895, a 60 year old former slave named Mary Fields secured a contract to deliver US mail by stagecoach between Cascade, Montana, and St. Peter’s Mission. She became the first African American woman to work as a star route mail carrier in the United States.
Fields was born into slavery around 1832 in Hickman County, Tennessee. The exact date is unknown because enslavers did not record such details for the people they owned. After the Civil War ended in 1865, she gained her freedom. She worked as a chambermaid on the Robert E. Lee steamboat, then found her way to Ohio.
She ended up at an Ursuline convent in Toledo, working as a groundskeeper. She was a large woman, about six feet tall and 200 pounds. She had a temper and a mouth full of curses, which made the nuns uncomfortable.
When her friend Mother Amadeus, who had become Mother Superior of a convent mission in Montana, fell ill with pneumonia, Fields rushed west to nurse her back to health . She arrived in Cascade, Montana, around 1885 and stayed. She did the heavy work at St. Peter’s Mission, repairs, hauling freight, tending chickens, gardening.
She also shot a man. A male subordinate who resented taking orders from a Black woman backhanded her across the mouth. When he reached for his gun, Fields drew first and fired. The exact outcome is disputed, but the incident led the bishop to ban her from the mission in 1894 .
Now in her 60s, Fields needed a job. The US Postal Service had a star route opening. Star routes were contracts awarded to private carriers who delivered mail to remote areas where regular postal service did not reach. The contractor bid for the route, posted a bond, and then drove it themselves or hired someone to do it.
Fields secured the Cascade to St. Peter’s Mission route. She proved she could handle a team of horses, defend the mail from thieves, and survive Montana’s brutal winters. She wore a .38 Smith & Wesson under her apron, plus a rifle and a revolver . She drove a stagecoach with a team of horses and a mule named Moses .
She never missed a single day of delivery. When snow was too deep for horses, she harnessed herself to the mail sacks and walked on snowshoes. The locals nicknamed her Stagecoach Mary. Or sometimes Black Mary.
Fields held the contract for two four year terms, from 1895 to 1899 and again from 1899 to 1903. The US Postal Service Archives now officially recognize her as the first African American woman star route mail carrier in the country.
Author Miantae Metcalf McConnell discovered documentation about Fields between 2006 and 2010. She brought the evidence to the USPS Archives Historian. That research allowed the Postal Service to officially establish Fields’ contribution to American history.
After retiring from mail carrying, Fields opened a laundry business in Cascade . She also babysat local children. She kept drinking whiskey and smoking cigars. The town loved her. When Montana passed a law forbidding women from entering saloons, the mayor granted her an individual exemption.
The town also closed its schools on her birthday each year so children could celebrate with her. When her house caught fire in 1912, neighbours rebuilt it for her.
Gary Cooper, the actor who would later star in Hollywood Westerns, met Fields as a child in Cascade. He told Ebony magazine in 1959 that she “could whip any two men in the territory” and that her capacity for hard liquor was matched only by her reputation.
Fields died on December 5, 1914, at 82 years old. Her funeral was one of the largest the town of Cascade had ever seen.
Sources:
- Wikipedia – Mary Fields (Stagecoach Mary)
- Library of Congress – Fields, Mary, approximately 1832-1914
- True West Magazine – Stagecoach Mary (2016)
- Britannica – Mary Fields
- History Channel – Meet Stagecoach Mary, the Daring Black Pioneer (2017)
- BIN: Black Information Network – Mary Fields: America’s First Black Woman Postal Carrier (2020)
- COWGIRL Magazine – Wild Woman Wednesday: Stagecoach Mary (2016)
