The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 135 - Stagecoach Mary

Episode Date: December 2, 2015

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the life of Mary Fields, also known as Stagecoach Mary SOURCES TOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

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Gareth and now I know that the podcast has started. So tired. Nice to sit down after driving up here from Will's house through the traffic. I look I drove from Will's today too so if you want to have a driving from Will's place contest let's have it. Right I already won it cuz I came over in traffic. Alright well that was a good game good game well played lots of ups and downs. My podcast was better. Excuse me? That I did with Will. You did a better podcast with Will than I did? How you would have no way of knowing that? No you're just being no you're just being a dick you would have no way of knowing that. Excuse

me? Generally the correct call. No you don't know that and if you did good for you. I have a hard time dealing with your rage. Well my rage you're making me rageful. You are listening to the dollop this is a bi-weekly American History podcast each week I restore from the historical records of America to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. And he has his anger issues. I do not have anger issues. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to

tickling podcasts. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hail queen shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle. And do what? That's right. Hi Gary. No. I see you done my friend. No. No. 1832. There she is. Mary Fields was born a slave. Okay. In Hickman County. I mean not okay. Tennessee. Well it seems like you've already. No. No no no. No no no. Flamer on that one. No no no. Gareth is pro-slavery. Not much is known about her. I like how when it's slavery. I'm actually. I'm actually Gareth and not Gary. But it's I'm pro-slavery. My name is right. Well that's a very very slave

honoring name. Actually you know what? I have half a mind boy. Gary is not a slave owning name but Gareth is. Hi everyone. Not much is known about her early years. She spent the first three decades of her life as a slave. Okay. Tell the Civil War. And then she was a free woman. Okay. Mm-hmm. She then moved to Mississippi. I don't know why you'd go south. Yeah what does that mean? What's the thinking there? Early early reconstruction there was a period where where the former slaves had a nice had it had kind of a nice ride and then the whites were like hey let's let's fuck this all up. Yeah. So there was a

brief period where things were looking good. Still. I mean. Well then and then which side would you rather be on? The one where they were like fuck no to this or the one where they were like god damn it we got to do this now. I would run my ass north but that's me. Yeah. Okay she moved to Mississippi and got a job working as a chambermaid on the steamboat Robert E. Lee. Interesting. I wouldn't. Yeah I wouldn't get on that boat. She's making odd choices. Yeah. The Robert E. Lee had a famous race against another steamboat. The Bills Natchez. The Bills Natchez? That's a terrible name. In 1870. Okay. Mary said the crew threw anything they could get

their hands on into the boiler to make that ship move. Okay. That included sides of bacon and ham. They threw ham I'm sorry so they threw they for a while the Robert E. Lee was powered by ham. Yeah they were throwing everything they could in the boiler and then included bacon and ham to get that ship moving. Because of the race? Yes. Okay so I'm okay. Ham boat. Yep just got a ham boat on her hands. She said quote it was expected that the boilers would burst but they did not and the Robert E. Lee won. One of Mary's childhood friends became a nun. Okay. Her name was Mother Amadeus. Normal. She I don't want to give away

but she ends up writing Rock Me Amadeus. She does? Yeah that's awesome. Mother Amadeus was placed at the Amadeus Amadeus. Mother Amadeus. Yeah. Alright. I thought it was gonna go on. Well I think that's it. Yeah it's pretty much it. There's the German rap where he's like. Oh yeah. Mother Amadeus was placed at the new St. Peter's convent near Cascade Montana. So they're fucking set up a whole new shop of Montana right? Did you call it Montana? I did a little bit. Okay I think that's a little Freudian. Well look I'd like to go to Montana every once in a while this summer. Well me and Dave's summer in Montana. I'm sorry did you say Montana?

I did not. Cascade was a small town that came to exist along the railroad between Helena and Great Falls. Okay. And Mother Amadeus came down with pneumonia in 1885. That's got to be a crazy thing for someone to say. Mother Amadeus has pneumonia. It's hard. It's a lot of words. Yeah. And she asked for Mary to come and join her and help her. And Mary came because they were old friends and she nursed Mother Amadeus back to health. What's pneumonia's deal? Isn't it contagious? Right? So I mean I know it comes from usually you get the flu and then you get pneumonia. So maybe it's a virus that's a result of the

flu. So it's a not. Can't say for sure. I haven't done a podcast on it. I mean yeah. Okay. After Mary took a job at the convent for nine bucks a week. Hot money then. That's not bad right? No I don't think that's bad. I don't think that's bad. She did everything. Plus you probably get three hots in a cot. Three what? Three hots in a cot. Three meals in a bed. She chopped wood. She dug holes and she helped build a schoolhouse and a chapel. Jesus. Okay. No fucking joke. All right. Did you have a blue ox? She eventually became the convent for woman. Okay. Yeah. Getting a little fucking respect. I respected her before. A fucking for

woman. Yeah. And sounds like sister acts so far. She would also drive the stage coach. She's doing a lot of stuff. She's the fucking all over the place. She'd take visitors to and from the train station. She also made the 120 mile supply runs to Helena. Okay. She performed this duty alone regardless of the weather. One night the horses were attacked by a pack of wolves and the wagon flipped. The horses scattered. Instead of bailing, Mary guarded the food shipment from wolves all night long. Whoa. The wolves would attack in a pack and Mary would blast them with her shotgun. Eventually she ran out of

buckshot and had to use her revolver. In the morning, she was surrounded by the bodies of wolves. Well, if she get if things got even harrier, I'm sure there was a ham on that wagon. Load a little ham in the gun. Yeah, I don't know if the ham's gonna be make some hammots. She managed to write the stagecoach on her own. That's fucking nuts. That's a heavy. That's heavy. That's a lot. I would just lay there and go, this is fucking, this is fucking. I would have gone. I'd be like, there were so many wolves. They'd be like, where's the food? I'd be like, the food. She fucking rolled that shit over on her own and put it back on the road. And then she

tracked down the horses, hooked it back up, it fucking got going. Tracked them down? It went on and fucking got them in the woods or whatever. It's happening to your voice? I'm sorry, I'm a little... That's what I do when I'm finding horses. Horse fighting boys. Oh, it's that a horse whispering. You're just a horse soprano. It's a horse fighting boys. Okay, that's adorable. She saved every single thing except a keg of molasses that broke. Let me ask you this. Did anyone see all this happen? No, but we believe her. Okay. The Bishop of Montana made her pay for the keg of molasses. Sorry. Yep. The Bishop of Montana? Yeah, he fucking runs all the

convents, right? Montana's Bishop made her pay for the molasses. Yeah, he was like, all right, where's the fucking molasses? That'll teach you. That's the thing that didn't make it. Well, pony up. Come on now, fair is fair. Pay for it. Did you eat the molasses? Fair is fair. Courage out, she was dipping her fist in the molasses the whole way. It's where they called her molasses Mary. Well, that makes sense. The big problem with Mary at the comment was that she was a bit rough around the edges. It sounds like it. She dressed in men's clothes. Okay. Although she did wear an apron when working, but under the apron, she always kept a revolver. Okay. In case,

you know, nuns. Sure. You know, they are violently unpredictable. And in the apron pocket, she kept a flask of whiskey. I mean, the sofa, she sounds pretty cool. Right? I would say very cool. Under the apron. Oh, I already did that. Mary was said to have been a very good shot with both the revolver and her rifle. Okay. She was around 200 pounds, very tall. She loved drinking, smoking home rolled cigars, swearing and arguing politics and playing with her dick. Okay. So she really, I mean, she's a Tom man. Yeah, she's a Tom man. Yeah. The nuns tried to get married to be more ladylike, but she enjoyed hanging with the men in town more than at the

condo. That's gotta be fucking great though. Like as like, I mean, at this point, she has to feel pretty comfortable being out and being black. And so she can now, now you're almost the maybe like a novelty to some of these places where they're like this fucking chick who drinks whiskey and as a great shot is gonna come in. She flips wagons. Right. She back then there wasn't, it wasn't, there were a lot of cowboys, black cowboys. Right. You don't see, they don't put that in the movies, but there were a ton of black cowboys. No, I've seen black cowboys. They used to fucking bail and they would run away and that's where they would go. They'd

be like, all right, I'm gonna go be a fucking cowboy. Yeah. Like you said, would you go to Mississippi or would be like, hey, how about out west and I got on some horses? I'd go to Montana. Montana. So the town, the women of the town of Cascade. I'm guessing they took to her well. They liked her. Well, they didn't think she was ladylike and then they pushed for a lot to be passed that barred all women from drinking in Cascade. Okay, but you can't, I mean, just because they didn't like. I just think the religious folk, yeah, they didn't like a lady doing that shit. Okay. Yeah, and you're making the right face. Yeah, it's not a cool move.

It's smelly. I'm making smell face. But then the mayor of Cascade ordered that Mary be the only woman who was allowed to drink. And now what happened was this was sounding pretty dumb. And now it's really awesome backfire. Now it's really awesome because that is so badass. Yeah, if you were the only person of your gender to be able to drink fucking amazing. Holy shit. She also enjoyed a good fistfight. Okay. Right. Now, as I didn't say she got into them, I said she enjoyed right enjoyed pursued Mary was known to be able to beat up any two men at once in Montana. Get out of here. That's what it said any two men at once. So you could

pick any two men in Montana and she would take them on at the same time. Wow. She had a standing bet she could knock out any man with one punch. Wow. She's a monster. The bet was a dime and she never lost once. She could knock someone out with one one fucking punch. She dropped your shit. Well, she's a fucking line backer. She's 100 pounds when I heard the flag and flip the and the weight. The first thing I thought was what an inside linebacker. Great insight. She would have been a great insight. Yeah. Yeah. A saloon in town had a standing bet that any man who could take a punch from Mary and remain on his feet would get

$5 in a free shot of whiskey. Wow. Do you know how many guys tried it because of the free shot of whiskey? Go ahead. Hit me. Your big mother. Hey, where are you me? I got a strong chin. Come on. Big job. Idiot. At a local ranch, Mary got into an argument with the ranch foreman over a harness. You could see how that would happen. Sure. What does that mean exactly? She got in a fight over like a horse. Yeah. The way you're harness a horse. Okay. She's like, No, that's not right. And he's like, What are you talking about? I don't know if she was like, No, that's not right. She was like, Hey, hey, fuck her. Hey, ass face. Hey,

you piece of shit. Hey, I'll knock you out. You put this on this way. You fucking animal. Hey, what are you doing, lady? That's it. Shut your goddamn manhole. All right, Mary, relax. Fuck you. I'll relax on your face. God damn it, Mary. Do what if you want to the horse? Just my fist or clutch you again. Got Mary. My lady fist. No. Too dead. She picked up a rock and smashed the foreman in the head. Whoa, Mary. Why are you bugging? That's one way to end an argument. One nun said, May God help anyone who walks on the lawn after Mary has cut it. Wow. She's just a fight. Like she should be in Game of Thrones. By the way, she cut it

but with being on her hands and knees and using her teeth, right? Yeah, she ate it with her mouth. Right. The Great Falls examiner newspaper said she had quote broken more noses than any other person in Montana. So first of all, it's a hard thing to corroborate. I mean, that's a hard thing to say that that is definitely. No, they kept records. Back then, that's the only thing they kept actual diligent records was nose breaks. Yeah. And by whom? There's no dental records. Nothing else but nose breaks. Yeah. The Native Americans called Mary white crow. Interesting. A little bit of reverse of the. Yeah, a white crow. Because

they said she acts like a white woman but has black skin. Okay. I don't think she's I don't sound to me like she doesn't act like anyone. Yeah, no. Yeah. That's true, right? She acts like a dude. Yeah. It should have been dude crow. We call her dude crow. Lady dude crow. We call her dude crow. She gender bender. She gender. We think we call her must talk. She must talk. Only explanation. Talk her junk. Must talk, lady. She's must talk. One school girl wrote an essay saying quote she drinks whiskey and she swears and she is Republican which makes her a low foul creature. Yeah. This is a this is a time when this was a Republican. This is when Republicans freed

the slave. She has liberal written all over her today's day and age. Well, they were more liberal than Republicans back then than the Democrats. Well, that's the same. Mary was a hard worker. She washed all the clothes and linens and took care of the convent's 400 chickens as well as tending the garden. Okay. It's a lot of chickens. Yeah. Can we just think about that? That's like a Tyson coop. A what? Tyson chicken coop. Oh, they're not like Mike Tyson. No, both maybe. Oh my god. Look, all these beautiful chickens inside of here. I used to be pigeons but no, I just like baby chicks. I like to rub them in my face. Yeah, look at this chicken. I want to punch you. I used to chase them and now all I want to do is smash them against the rocks. I'm violent.

I guess what you could say is that I'm pretty violent. She was pretty much indispensable. She also fought a skunk that got her to the chicken coop. Uh, fought? How did she fight it? I'll knock him out. She put on her fence and started punching that shit. That skunk didn't know what he was up against. When Mary discovered it, so she's like, I mean, she's a celebrity arguably, right? She's a celebrity for sure. I mean, in this area, but when Mary discovered it, the skunk had already killed 60 baby chicks. So the thing was, I got a fucking tear. Yeah. I'm skunking. Snap it. He snapped, snap, snap, snap. He's having a good time. She killed it and dragged the dead skunk a mile back

to the convent where she showed it to the nuns and a visiting chaplain. Look what I've done. That kind of seems. Hey ladies, gather around. Look at this shit. That's like cat behavior. I did that. Mary motherfucking cunt fuck fields. But that's like cat behavior where like a cat will be like, here's the bird. You're like, no, I don't. They're like, for you, I got you the bird. Dude, I don't need to see it. I got you a bird. Dude, I'm good. This is our bird. I'm good. Without the bird. I'll skin it and then we'll eat it raw together. It is our bird. Okay. You're welcome. The nuns asked her how she avoided getting sprayed and she said she just attacked it from the front. You know, the thing about skunks is they're able to rotate pretty quick.

Wouldn't that be a great scene in Rocky? Yeah. Let's come back the next day. Show him soaking in the tub and tomato juice. Then he comes back. And then when he's finally fighting, the other fighters like, Rock, you stink. Jesus, Rocky, why don't you take a shower? I haven't tasted skunks forever. Take a shower in there, Rocky. I did shower. There's a skunk. What? I did shower. There was a skunk. What? There was a what? Hey, I already showered. One of the training tanks, I changed skunk. Okay. That's my wife. Jesus, you're an idiot, huh, Rock? Okay. Mary worked at the convent for 10 years, but her reputation was her undoing.

The Bishop of Montana had been hearing many complaints about her behavior, and then she went a bit too far. Well, she was the only woman allowed to drink. Right. I mean, that will make you feel a little empowered. It's very empowered. Yeah. She's like a superhero. I mean, she went from being a slave to being the only woman in a town who could drink and beat everybody up and beat the fuck out of everybody. Yeah. That's quite a 180. The convent handyman was apparently upset that Mary made more money than he did. Okay. Well, he's going to get knocked the fuck out. So he started complaining to anyone

who had ears. Okay. All over the town. He complained about Mary. Finally, Mary heard about his loud mouth and challenged him to a duel on convent property. Oh, on convent property? Why there? Because it's where she heard out about it. She heard about it. She just went to where he was. She heard about it and she just fucking went straight to the dude and was like, let's do this shit. You want to fuck with a bro? That is baller. You're not a bro. I'm two. I'm a bro. So the foreman agreed or the handyman agreed and somehow in the duel, Mary shot him in the ass. Now, one of two things happened. He was still walking his 10 paces and she shot him in the ass. Likely, right? Or he fell and turned. Who? She shot him in the butt. Yeah. Who? She just...

who as a defense is like, my honey. Yeah. She shot him in the ass. Yeah. He was like, nah. Oh, fucking bitch. Bottom, bottom shooter. Oh, fucking bitch. So that was it for the bishop. He had it. He ordered Mary to leave the convent. I love how there was a time when like, it was like, the how you doled in the streets was unfair. All right, enough. I have now had it up to here with you. Here's a rule to the anarchy. Everything else was fine. But now you're shooting man in the buttocks. Listen, if you don't have respectful duel game, what's left? So she had to leave the convent. Okay. Mother Amadeus got Mary a job as a mail carrier between the convent and cascade. So she was a dude. Oh, I get it. It took me a while. I was like, did I read something wrong?

Nope. It's just a different word. So she got her job as a male lady. Right. So she's a mailman lady. She bought she bought Mary a wagon and a team of horses. Mary was now the second woman in the US to have a mail route. But she didn't just get the job because she asked for it. Getting a job at the Puzzle Service was very hard. Applicants would compete against each other. So there'd be a fucking job up and everyone would come down and they'd be like, all right, let's see who's got the fucking goods. Really? And they would each hitch a team of six horses to a stage coach and whoever did it the fastest got the job. That is such a funny, like, first of all, we should do more shit like that.

There should be more. You should make time trials. Totally. Yes. But also that really, if you're going to do that, you should really set up a little more of a course. I mean, there's way more to being a mail carrier than just hitching a wagon. I agree. But after you hitch the wagon, you're so tired. You can hitch all the horses up. So she did it. So she did it fastest and at the age of 60, holy shit, beat all the dudes who are probably, let's be honest, in their 20s. Some fucking crazy old lady who's nine feet tall and weighs four hundred pounds just comes over and she's hammered out of her mind. She's just she's just left a trail of dudes knocked out. Yeah. She hitches them. It smells like skunk.

So she's the second male and first black mail carrier, male or female. She's the very first black. Wow. To hold a position. She never failed once to deliver a letter. That's pretty crazy. She's never said to be late. If the snow got too high, she would tie up the horses to a tree and carry the male on her back. What? She would leave if the horses couldn't walk in the snow anymore. But how was she must have been? How far would she be going? I don't know. I mean, it sounds like miles. Wow. Yeah. My I mean, it sounds like there was like a hundred or so miles. So she tied up the horses and I'll be back. Oh my God. And then she just fucking cruise off with her fucking bag of shit. It was during this period that Mary got her nickname

stagecoach. Yeah. Stagecoach Mary. Because you're like she is a stagecoach. Yeah. She has a need one. She is one. Yeah. In 1903, Mother Amadeus was sent to Alaska to set up a mission. Mary was now 70. She was devastated to lose her friend. All right, let's talk about this. Okay. So there's a nut. There's a woman who wants to be a nut. Yeah. And there is another lady and they grew up together and she's a tough son of a bitch. Yeah. And the first one becomes an honor. She goes, Hey, come see me here. Come visit me. Come hang with me. Come live with me. Yeah. She gets her job. Wait a minute. And then she gets fired and she's like, Hey, I'll buy you some stuff. I'll buy you like a new car. You're right. They were good friends.

And then you can still live around here and I'll see you around. Good pals like to keep in touch. By the way, I like it when you're tough and tough and you're rough and tough. Yeah. Like to see like to see that that's sort of, you know, a woman embrace her womanhood and you know, really be tough. You know, and then the and then the nun gets fired or moved to another place in Alaskan and you can't follow and you're like, I'm hungry wants to see her friend because my lover is gone. What? Love her. David. Mary stopped the mail route and moved to the town of Cascade. Okay. So they were definitely fucking. She was fucking wrong. She was such a local hero that the town would close the school in honor of her birthday. I mean, even though she didn't know

what day her birthday was. What? She didn't know what their birthday was. So they were like, she was a slave. How would she fucking know? You know what I mean? I mean, who knows what kind of records they kept. So she just what did she just do invented or one day a year? She'd be like, I feel like tomorrow. I think that no, she wouldn't change it yearly. But she they said that it's there are a couple of places that she got her birthday. She would say twice a year. She had a birthday. So I mean, if you if you are a lot of that luxury, you should take it a little bit of advantage of it. Yeah. If you're if you're going to get, you know, huge rewards for having a birthday, you might as well bring that in a couple of times. Yeah.

It was like her dead grandma, like the dead grandma excuse when you were in school. That's exactly it. And college grandmas. I had a lot. Oh, yeah. Mary made a living. I ran out eventually and had to make up new stuff. I mean, that's how many dead grandmas I had. Jesus. It's a massacre. Yeah. No, it was a it was a genocide of grandma's what I had. It's been acknowledged as such. Mary made a living by doing laundry for locals in her home. And she kept on drinking, fighting and swearing. One day she was drinking in a saloon. What a man who owed her $2 for doing laundry walked by. Well, I'm going to go ahead and take a guess that this guy gets a little guff. She stormed after him. And she grabbed him by the collar spun around and punched him

in the face. She's over 70. Yeah. She's yes. Then she walked back to the bar and sat down and said his laundry bill is paid. Oh, my God. Was that maybe the first catchphrase? Was that maybe the first like tag? Well, she's the first Swartz nigger. The first tag for sure. Yeah. He's laundry's paid. Wow. Yeah. It's amazing. Mary also opened a restaurant which did not do well because she gave everyone credit who couldn't afford to pay. Yeah. She went broke twice trying to run the restaurant before shutting it down. Okay. She was loved in the town. When the local hotel was sold, part of the contract said that the new owner had to give Mary free meals for the rest of her life. Wow. When our house burned down, the locals got together and built her a new one.

Mary also babysat a lot of the kids in town. One of them was a boy visiting for a while from the city of Dearborn. His name was Gary Cooper. Gary Cooper loved her so much as a kid that right before he died, he read an article for her in Ebony magazine. Okay. It's the Gary Cooper. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's fucking crazy. Yeah. But he was so affected by her by just being with her a little time. It was like a fucking nine year old that he wrote about her with all the shit that he did in Hollywood. Yeah. And all the fucking ladies he tore through because he threw because he's Gary Cooper. So he fucked his way through this town. Okay. And all the blow he did. Right. It's Gary Cooper. Right? Yeah. Just blow off of

Hooker's breasts. The whole Cooper legend. Sure. That was what he was doing. Which I'm now completely fabricating. Right. He went through all that. And at the end, he was like, man, how about that giant seven year old black lady? I'm a stagecoach. Oh, stagecoach. Mary also adopted the Cascade baseball team. She adopted them. She was like, I'm the team mother. I take care of my boys, that kind of thing. Okay. She gave them flowers at each game. And anyone who at home runs, she gave flowers to anyone who didn't, she beat the fuck out of. If anyone would talk shit about the team, she would punch them in the face. But she's but at this age, she's so old. Honestly, like this is a while ago that I mean,

my guess is life expectancy wasn't even 70. No, this is crazy. So she's she's not only far, especially for a black one life expectancy. She was a slave. She's not only surpassing life expectancy, but she in this day and age, what she's doing would be considered insane. Oh, no, fucking crazy beating the shit out of him. He's going to be a celebrity. Oh God, she'd be how quickly she'd be on Dancing with the Stars. Trump would be like, you gotta run. Yeah, you gotta be my you gotta be my running mate. In 1914, Mary got the feeling she was close to death. She did not want to be a burden on her friends. So in the middle of the night, she got up and walked out of her house. Oh God, and laid down in some tall weeds. She did the dog move.

Yep. She did what dogs do. Who does that? She just went outside to lay down and die and die. But some young kids were playing there the next day and they found her still alive. Yeah, I need a couple more days to die, please. I'm in no trouble in the weeds. What? The locals took her to Columbus Hospital in Great Falls. Don't you come to a hospital? Leave me in the weeds. No, I'd rather just die in the weeds over the week. Going to the hospital. Fuck yeah, you son of a bitch. Hey, come down here close. Mary. Stagecoach Mary died a few days later at the age of 82 of liver failure. Wow, because she's fucking pounding. Wow. She's a giant alcoholic,

giant lesbian alcoholic. Oh man. She was buried in a small cemetery between Cascade and St. Peter's Mission. Well, nuts. And you can still hear the ghost of Mary beating the shit out of other ghosts. You can. She's kicking the fucking shit out of the ghost. You can still hear Motherfucker. Mother son of a bitch. His laundry bill is paid. Hey. Your laundry bill is paid. Oh laundry bill. All right. Good job. That's what happens when you mix whites with colors.