America’s Heroes: “Stagecoach” Mary Fields

“Stagecoach” Mary Fields lived from 1832 to 1914 and embodied the American Old West qualities of hard work, toughness, and faith.

Born into slavery in Tennessee, she was enslaved by a pro-slavery Unionist Democrat, Judge Edmund Dunne. He traveled the country extensively throughout his life. He moved from New York to Tennessee, became a California legislator, served as a Chief Justice of the Arizona Territory, a member of the convention that wrote the original constitution of Nevada, and he helped found a Catholic colony in Florida. Judge Dunne’s activities literally carried him from coast to coast.

After slavery ended with the passage of the 13th Amendment, Mary was freed but chose to continue living with the Dunne family. When the judge’s wife died in 1883, Mary took the judge’s five children to his sister, Mother Amadeus, a nun who headed a convent in Toledo, Ohio. The following year, Mother Amadeus was sent to Cascade, Montana, to start a school for Native American girls alongside a school for the Blackfeet Tribe run by Jesuit priests. When Mother Amadeus became deathly ill, Mary hurried to Montana to nurse her back to health.

Finish reading Mary Field’s biography with your purchase of “America’s Heroes: Black History Edition.”

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