Were Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane married, and did they have a daughter?
Keith Bell
Manchester, United Kingdom
Calamity Jane never married Wild Bill Hickok. They traveled to Deadwood, South Dakota, together and were acquaintances, but there is no evidence of a romance (especially on his part). That belief came from the fertile imaginations of others—especially Jean McCormick, who claimed to be the daughter of the legendary pair. Bill and Jane are buried next to each other in Deadwood’s Mount Moriah Cemetery.
Martha (her name wasn’t even Jane) had several “husbands” and a daughter, Jessie, who died in Los Angeles in 1960.
I suggest you read Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend by James D. McLaird. I heard him speak recently, and his is the definitive work on this wild woman of the West.
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