Legendary Lady of the West

In Mary Fields AKA Stagecoach Mary, biographer Erich Martin Hicks details the tenacious life of a black woman on the Montana frontier, where she worked for the Ursuline Nuns at St. Peter’s Mission and drove the mail wagon in Cascade, Montana.
– Courtesy Erich Martin Hicks –

The story of the legendary black American women who delivered the U.S. mail in Cascade, Montana, in the 1890s, rises from the pages of author Erich Martin Hicks’ book Mary Fields AKA Stagecoach Mary. Using authentic historical documents and photographs, Hicks thoughtfully dramatized the story of the heroic figure who was born a slave in Tennessee and eventually headed West to nurse an ailing friend. Stagecoach Mary once battled off wolves during an all-night vigil on the prairie, was a commercial freighter, ran a laundry, toted a gun and smoked a cigar. Her story is compelling, gritty and oftentimes heartbreaking.

—Chris Enss, author of Mochi’s War: Tragedy of the Sand Creek Massacre