Calamity Jane and Her Siblings: The Saga of Lena and Elijah Canary
160
Calamity Jane and Her Siblings: The Saga of Lena and Elijah Canary
160Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781467119399 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Arcadia Publishing SC |
| Publication date: | 06/20/2016 |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
THE TRIP WEST
Billowing puffs of white canvas–topped wagons rumbled across the western prairie, leaving trails of ruts and choking dust. The brooding sky and unrelenting sun glared at the intrusive travelers angling along the well-worn route as they meandered their way west. The Canary family's wagon joined the stream of pioneers rattling along in their schooners, their focus on the golden opportunities in the West. An eight-year-old tomboy riding near the Canary wagon soaked in the land's call to adventure, relishing each new challenge from the wild frontier. But underneath her tough exterior lived the dreams of a young girl.
The eight-year-old was Martha Canary, the Canarys' eldest daughter, who would eventually be crowned with the moniker "Calamity Jane." She recalled the trip west in her pamphlet autobiography, which she dictated in 1896. She had it printed during her later years and sold it, purportedly to fund her daughter Jessie's education.
"My maiden name was Marthy Cannary," she told her ghostwriter.
"I was born in Princeton, Missourri [sic], May 1, 1852." Before the illiterate Martha even dictated a full paragraph, the second sentence in her autobiography rings untrue. She was born in 1856, not 1852, the date that has been perpetuated throughout her history. But this isn't the only inaccuracy to throw the reader off her trail. Her so-called autobiography progressively misled her readers.
Martha continued her dubious recollections:
Father and mother were natives of Ohio. I had two brothers and three sisters, I being the oldest of the children. As a child I always had a fondness for adventure and out-door exercise and especial fondness for horses which I began to ride at an early age and continued to do so until I became an expert rider being able to ride the most vicious and stubborn of horses, in fact the greater portion of my life in early times was spent in this manner.
Martha omitted many details from her first paragraph, which has frustrated those searching for her family ties. Her autobiography is about her life not her siblings. Therefore, she sees no need to name or number the children who accompanied their parents on the overland journey west. But to those who are interested in her family history, such details are important in ferreting out the birthdates and whereabouts of her brothers and sisters once they reached Montana.
Martha continued:
In 1865 we emigrated from our home in Missourri [sic] by the overland route to Virginia City, Montana, taking five months to make the journey. While on the way the greater portion of my time was spent in hunting along with the men and hunters of the party, in fact I was at all times with the men when there was excitement and adventures to be had. By the time we reached Virginia City I was considered a remarkable good shot and a fearless rider for a girl of my age.
Martha was only eight when she accompanied the men on their adventures. It's doubtful they would have included her in hunting at such a young age, but her audience doesn't know this. She said she was born in 1852, making her two years older than she really was. However, there may be some truth in what she said. Her relatives remembered her assuming the role of a boy when she lived in Missouri, a gender role she often played for the remainder of her life.
Martha also recalled viable experiences in another portion of her autobiography during the trip across the country. Certainly many of these could have happened, and she probably did correctly remember the unexpected adventures of wagon train life. She mentioned lowering the wagons over ledges with ropes when crossing the mountains, fording swollen streams and finally arriving safely in Virginia City.
Although Calamity's autobiography has been criticized as mostly fiction, the timeline of her life, although confusing and inaccurate, does reveal some clues to her whereabouts. Since newspapers were very diligent in keeping up with her appearances when she became famous, except for a few instances during her life, their reports are valuable for determining her whereabouts and her possible connections with her brothers and sisters.
Martha's younger sister Lena Borner told her version of family history to her children; however, it differs from Martha's recollections. Lena quoted the same departure date as Martha. She told her family that in 1865, Robert Wilson Canary and his wife, Charlotte, packed their wagon with necessities for the trip west and left their home in Princeton, Missouri. Lena does name the children and their ages, which are older than they would have actually been. She stated the parents and their three children — Martha, aged thirteen; Lena Pauline, aged nine; and Elijah, five — joined a wagon train and set their sights on a new home in the West. Lena's son Tobias (Tobe) Borner told this family history to a Wyoming newspaper.
Furthermore, according to Lena's accounts, Robert Canary was a Methodist minister who had joined the Mormon church and was studying the religion. Dreaming of a bright future, the family loaded their covered wagon with supplies, hitched up their yoke of oxen and joined a Mormon wagon train going to Salt Lake City. Twelve wagons led the procession when it left Garden City, but as the train traveled, more people joined, increasing the total to sixty wagons.
Delilah Canary, wife of James Thornton Canary, Robert Canary's brother, may have scoffed at Lena's remembrances. While living in Missouri before either family came west, Delilah gossiped about her sister-in-law Charlotte to her friends. Delilah said Robert Canary had found his future wife in an Ohio bawdy house when she was just a young teen. Charlotte was said to frequent saloons and the company of rough men while neglecting her children and lazy, dependent husband. But she was so beautiful that Robert apparently overlooked her faults.
Inconsistent with the crude tales of the Canary couple, a descendant of Delilah's passed on the family story that Robert served as a chaplain at an unidentified military post before he bought a 180-acre farm from his father, James, in 1856. He had married Charlotte Burge six years before in 1850. He also served as chaplain during the Civil War, probably in St. Louis, where chaplains were in demand, according to the relative.
Furthermore, Calamity was said to criticize the press for verbally abusing her, especially when they called her a minister's daughter. She unequivocally denied that her father was a minister. Since the stories are at opposite points on the spectrum, perhaps Robert fits somewhere in the middle.
Although the family story is muddled, the Canary family was lured west on a challenging journey. Like the migrants before them, their loaded wagon creaked and groaned along an overland trail worn deep and wide. Since the migration had begun in the 1840s, the sun had bleached the bones of animals that had expired from overwork, lack of good water, feed and exposure. Mounds of rocks, slabs of carved stone and crude, weathered crosses marked graves of migrants who had died during the trek.
According to Lena, during the Canarys' trip, a band of hostile Indians raided their camp during the night and killed Robert and Charlotte while they were taking their turn guarding the livestock. Martha volunteered to go for help at a fort they had passed about ten miles back. She and the soldiers returned the next morning. The soldiers followed the trail left by the raiding party, recaptured the livestock and returned to camp. After the Canarys' burial, the wagon train left for its destination.
The story is plausible; however, Martha Canary's story contrasts significantly with her sister Lena's. Martha never mentioned her parents being killed or her heroic act of going to the fort for help. Surely she wouldn't have let this act of bravery slip by.
Martha stated in her autobiography that she had two brothers and three sisters, she being the eldest. She doesn't explain which children accompanied Robert and Charlotte Canary as they traveled to Virginia City, Montana — not Virginia City, Nevada, as some newspaper sources stated.
However, one clue emerged, placing the Canary family in Montana. The Virginia City newspaper, the Montana Post, was aghast when it heard of three Canary waifs appearing at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fergus in Virginia City, dressed only in calico slips to protect them against the December cold. Reporters reprimanded the parenting of the family. "A most flagrant and wanton instance of unnatural conduct on the part of parent to their children, came under our notice today." The newspaper further chastised the parents, "Inhuman brutes who have deserted their poor, unfortunate children."
The Montana newspaper wrote, "Three little girls, who state their names to be Canary, appeared at the door of Mr. Fergus, on Idaho Street, soliciting charity. The ages of the two eldest were about ten and twelve, respectively. The eldest girl carried in her arms her infant sister, baby of about twelve months of age. Canary, the father, it seems, is a gambler in Nevada. The mother is a woman of the lowest grade, and was last seen in town, at Dr. Byam's office, a day or two since …We understand that the little ones returned to Nevada, where they have existed for some time."
Mrs. Fergus, Mrs. Castner and Mrs. Moon took pity on the children and provided the family with food and clothing. "Blessed are the merciful," the paper placed in quotes.
Based on a newspaper article dated December 31, 1864, historians suggest 1864 as the date the Canary family arrived in Virginia City, not 1865, as Martha stated in her autobiography. Furthermore, the Canary family spent an undetermined amount of time in Iowa before beginning their journey.
Apparently, Charlotte wished to say goodbye to her mother, brothers and sisters before she and her family made the trek. Charlotte's parents and some of her siblings lived in Polk, Iowa. The 1850 census listed father Henry Burge as fifty-four and mother Elizabeth as fifty-three. Five siblings were listed in the census records in addition to Charlotte. The eldest was Gideon at the age of nineteen, then Benjn at seventeen, Andrew at fifteen, Harriet at thirteen, Charlotte at ten and Elizabeth J. at eight.
Charlotte's father, fifty-nine-year-old Henry Burge, died in Polk, Iowa, in 1856, the same year Martha was born. Mother Elizabeth Burge may have still been alive in 1863–64 when the Canarys stopped for a visit. Certainly, sisters and brothers may still have been in the area.
The two eldest Canary girls, appearing at the Fergus door in 1864, may have been Martha and Lena, even though they would have been younger than described. The twelve-month-old child could have accompanied them west, but Lena does not mention her. More than likely, she was born after they arrived in Montana. Who is she? She may have been Isabelle (Belle) or Sarah, both of whom are mentioned in a few genealogies.
To further confuse the story, some genealogy records have added the two sisters Isabelle and Sarah to the Robert W. Canary family tree. Contradictions in different genealogies confuse their birth dates. For example, Isabelle is recorded as being born in 1858 in Mercer County, Missouri, in one genealogy, but no death date is given. In another genealogy, 1866 is given as the birth and death date for Isabelle. Sarah does not appear in all of the Robert Wilson family trees. When she does, the birth date is given as 1866, with her death in the same year. According to some genealogy records, their birth dates are both 1866. If this date is correct, it is possible they were twins. Did one survive and the other not?
In the Missouri 1860 census records, only three children are listed. Martha was four, a brother named Cilus was three and a younger sister Lana (Lena) was listed as one. The birth date for Martha was given as 1856, which is the correct date, even though her autobiography stated that she was born in Princeton, Missouri, on May 1, 1852. Cilus's birth date is listed as 1857. Lena's birth date is recorded as 1859.
There is no mention of Elijah in the 1860 census because he was apparently born after the census was taken. Elijah told a different story about his birth, adding more uncertainty to the Canary children's early years. During his lifetime, he had always recorded he was born in Helena, Montana, sometimes stating his birth date was July 1, 1862, which was also listed on his death certificate. He said his mother died when he was an infant and his father died when he was six.
Elijah gave at least two more birth dates during his lifetime: 1868 and 1867. In addition, genealogy records have used 1856 as a birth date. If his mother, Charlotte, died in 1866, then 1867 and 1868 would be incorrect as birth dates.
If the Canarys traveled west in 1864, Martha's mother would have been twenty-four years old and her father thirty-nine. Martha would have been eight; Cilus, seven; and Lena, five. It's possible that Elijah would have been two, if 1862 was his birth date. Surely Lena would have remembered which brother or brothers rode in the wagon with her! She did.
A family relative recalled that Martha's father, Robert Canary, sold his Missouri farm in 1862 after Cilus died at the age of five. She further stated Elijah would have been two then. If she was correct, Elijah would have been born in 1860 after the 1860 census was taken. Therefore, he could have been six years old when his father died like he claimed, but there is no explanation why he insisted his mother died when he was an infant.
The discrepancy in birth dates for the entire family muddies the pool of genealogy. It seems birth dates were either forgotten or changed on a whim to fit the situation. Who the children were and the ages of the children when they crossed the plains and arrived in Virginia City is still uncertain.
Calamity recorded in her autobiography:
Mother died at Black Foot, Montana, 1866, where we buried her. I left Montana in Spring of 1866, for Utah, arriving at Salt Lake city during the summer. Remained in Utah until 1867, where my father died, then went to Fort Bridger, Wyoming Territory, where we arrived May 1, 1868, then went to Piedmont, Wyoming, with U.P. Railway. Joined General Custer as a scout at Fort Russell, Wyoming, in 1870, and started for Arizona for the Indian Campaign.
Here is where Calamity inserts her fictional life as a scout, an important part of her legend. Unfortunately, this claim has been proven false.
When Martha's mother died in Blackfoot, Montana, in 1866, Robert and the family left Montana for Salt Lake City, where he died in 1867, leaving the children as orphans. Regardless of the conflicting family history, it appears that the family migrated west, and the children, of whom the names and number are uncertain, were left homeless at early ages when their mother and father died.
The fact that each sister records a different number of children in the family and tells a completely different version of what happened to their parents is puzzling. However, both girls were quite young when they made the trip across the plains, and perhaps family members distorted the story each time it was told. Lena may be correct in her recollection of the three children who made the trip. One or two siblings may have died before 1866, when Charlotte passed on.
Regardless of conflicting information, Martha Canary and her brothers and sisters were orphaned and left to the mercies of the world. According to Lena's reminiscences, told by her son to a Wyoming newspaper, Martha sold the ox team and wagon when the orphaned siblings arrived in Salt Lake in 1865 and bought clothes for her sisters and brothers and herself. She found homes for Lena and Lige (as Elijah was sometimes called) and found employment at a boardinghouse. Again, the date they were orphaned differs when compared to Calamity's autobiography, but then again, dates are difficult to remember.
Martha slipped into a seldom-used "we" when she used the pronoun in her autobiography, saying, "Then went to Fort Bridger, Wyoming Territory, where we arrived May 1, 1868." She only mentions her siblings once in her recollections, so it's doubtful that is was one of them. However, someone was with her when she arrived at Fort Bridger. Who could that have been? It could have been an old woman who was reported to have been caring for her. Martha ran away from her and attached herself to an army post.
Much later, in a Lander interview given in 1885, Calamity told a newspaper correspondent that she "came to Miners' Delight [Hamilton City] in 1868 at the age of 11 years, the inmate of the family of Maj. Patrick A. Gallagher, an officer who has done loyal service in the civil war, as a member of a California regiment. Mrs. Gallagher had picked up the girl as the family passed through Fort Bridger."
The "we" in her autobiography couldn't have been the Gallaghers, as they picked her up at Fort Bridger.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Calamity Jane and her Siblings"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Jan Cerney.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction 9
1 The Trip West 11
2 South Pass City 20
3 The Black Hills of Dakota Territory 32
4 Lander and the Union Pacific Railroad Towns 45
5 The Borners 65
6 Elijah 72
7 Carson Family 77
8 Outlaw Trail 86
9 Calamity's Last Years 93
10 Boise 107
11 Canary Relatives 113
12 Swan Valley 121
13 The Doxfords 128
Notes 135
Bibliography 147
Index 155
About the Author 159