Happy Birthday Annie Oakley

Happy Birthday Annie Oakley

Born August 13, 1860 – November 1926

You will find a statue of Annie Oakley in Memorial Plaza in Greenville, Ohio.

She was also honored with a star on the Texas Trail of Fame in fort Worth, Texas at the Fort Worth Stockyards.

A postage stamp was made to honor Annie Oakley. Her likeness is on the 29cent postage stamp issues in 1994.

Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses (some places report her last name as Mosey) in Darke County, Ohio. Her father passed away from pneumonia when she was just six years old. She was one of six children. Her mother soon remarried and after her mother and new husband had a child her second husband also died.

As a child Phoebe Ann Moses was called Annie.

She entered a shooting contest when she was just fifteen years old and won. She later married the opponent she had beat, Frank Butler, in 1876. She traveled the country with her husband who participated in shooting competitions originally acting as his assistant, not a shooter. When her husband’s shooting partner fell ill Annie filled in and her career was born.

According to a newspaper article in The Butler Weekly Times (Missouri), September 26, 1912 issues:

“During her career she has traveled over fourteen countries and has exhibited her skill before the crowned heads of Europe. The late King Edward, before whom she gave five exhibitions, and who was himself a fine shot, said to her on one occasion: You are the finest shot that I have ever seen. America should be proud of you. … At the Sportmens’ Show, held at Madison Garden, New York, the past winter, Annie Oakley was the big feature. The press of the metropolis devoted more space to her than to all of the other competing marksmen and markswomen. “

On October 29, 1901 Annie Oakley was injured as the result of a train wreck in North Carolina.

I found very few references to the train wreck but the two I found were quite dramatic. The New York Tribune reported the following in their January 17, 1902 issue:

“Miss Oakley was injured on October 29 last, while travelling with Colonel Cody’s show in North Carolina. A collision so seriously affected her nervous system that her brown hair turned nearly white. She has, however, again regained her health and shot yesterday with all her oldtime steadiness. “

A full description of the wreck was printed in the October 30, 1901 issue of The Times [Richmond, Virginia]

“Buffalo Bill and his men wept when they saw their favorite horses killed. Terrible carnage. Blood ran in a rivulet from the poor beasts.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was wrecked within two miles of Lexington, NC this morning at 2 o’clock. The wreck occurred within 35 miles south of Greensboro. Freight train No 72 going south was ordered to await the Buffalo Bill show, which was to come in two sections. The engineer on the freight misunderstood his orders and only waited for the first section. The result was that when the second section came north it met the freight train and a terrible smash-up was the result.

Cattle cars containing the horses; passenger cars and box cars were piled into one great heap and no less than one hundred and six horses were killed, including the famous horse McKinley which was the last horse ridden by the late President (referring to the late Pres. McKinley who died Sept. 1901): the horse Sitting Bull, which bears the name and was the property of the great Indian Chief; Daddy, the shooting horse of Sitting Bull, Old Pap, Colonel Cody’s favorite saddle horse, Old Eagle, the star ring horse was killed and his mangled body fell on top of one of the wrecked engines, and many other animals, worth many thousand dollars.

The team of mules that drew the Deadwood Coach were also killed. Colonel Cody spent today at the scene of the wreck and is heartbroken over the slaughter. He says his loss is $60,000.

The horses were piled on top of one another, and it is stated that half of the rough soldiers, including Buffalo Bill, actually wept at the scene. The first section of the train came into Danville early this morning and were carried to the show grounds.

The accident was the result of a head on collision.

The city had the largest crowd today ever known in its history and the probability is that the big tent would have been taxed to its capacity. This is the first visit of the show to Danville and the first wreck that has ever happened to the second section to speak of during the nineteen years that Colonel Cody has been on the road. Colonel Cody himself was in the wreck, as was Miss Annie Oakley, the famous crack shot. Both narrowly escaped death.

H.A. Williams, trainmaster for the Southern, had two ribs broken.

No other accidents to the passengers on the show train are reported.

Major Burke, the famous scout was in Danville when the accident occurred. He has been in full charge here, and the tent was pitched just as though no accident had happened. No show was given, however, and the management was so perfect that the entire aggregation left Danville at a late hour tonight, leaving no trace of the dead horses that were hauled in from the scene of the wreck.”

Oakley stopped touring after the train wreck in 1901. She and her husband settled in New Jersey.

In 1922 Oakley and her husband were then involved in a car accident. After a year of recovering from the car wreck Oakley decided to start touring again but took ill in 1925 prompting her to move back to Ohio to be closer to family.

It was stated in a July 5, 1922 issue of The Daily Banner [Cambridge, Maryland] that…

“Annie Oakley has brought up eighteen children, none of them her own, with the proceeds of her marksmanship. She has just taken the nineteenth, a baby girl, under her care.”

Annie Oakley died on November 3, 1926.

An obituary for Annie Oakley as printed in “The Evening Star, Washington DC” in the November 5, 1926 issue:

“HILLS OF OHIO WAIT FOR ANNIE OAKLEY”

“Ashes of famous rifle shot to be buried near place of birth. Greenville, Ohio, November 5. In the hills of Darke County, Ohio where the girl Annie Oakley learned to handle a rifle, will rest the ashes of the noted marksman who was perhaps the greatest woman shooter of all time. Mrs. Frank Butler, better known in this and other countries as Annie Oakley, marksman and showwoman, died here at the home of friends. She was 66 years old. The body will be cremated, in accordance with her wishes and the ashes will be interred in a little cemetery at the village of Brock, just a few miles from Woodington, Ohio where she was born.

She was the friend of monarchs and the confidante of Chief Sitting Bull. Acquaintanceships with sovereigns of Europe colored her brilliant career but one of the most picturesque episodes of her life was her close friendship with the taciturn old Indian chief who greatly admired her shooting ability.

Sitting Bull called her Watanie Cicilia, or Little Sureshot. When he died he left her all his personal belongings.

Annie Oakley could shoot perfect scores consistently. During one of her European tours King George V of England told her she was the best rifle shot in the world and awarded her a medal. Once in the early ‘80s Annie Oakley, with a bullet from her rifle, flicked the ashes from a cigar held in the lips of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany.

She won fame with Buffalo Bill Cody’s troupe. Cody engaged her after one exhibition of her shooting. It was during her tours abroad with this show that she came in contact with royalty.

Annie Oakley started her career shooting game in the hills around this section. She was in her teens when she met Frank Butler, then regarded as an expert rifleman, and not long after she was widely known.

Injuries received in a train accident in 1901 resulted in one side of her body being almost completely paralyzed. Some of her best records for straight and fancy shooting, however, were made after she recovered. At Pinehurst, North Carolina in 1920 she broke 100 clay targets straight from the 16 yard mark.”

Her husband, who was her manager, has been seriously ill in Detroit for several days. He is the only survivor. The funeral services Saturday will be private. "

An interesting follow-up to this obituary was printed the following day, November 6, 1926

“White Lie is Told to Keep Dying Wish”

“Friends of Annie Oakley misinform newspaper men as to real time of funeral. How friends of Annie Oakley, on time champion markswoman of the world, who died here Wednesday, conspired to practice a white deception in order to keep a promise to the dying woman was revealed last night.

Annie Oakley, in private life Mrs. Frank Butler, shortly before she died planned her own funeral in detail and specified particularly that the services were to be strictly private. Her friends promised this and they kept their promise.

Newspaper correspondents were told that private funeral services were to be held this morning. (Yesterday morning), however, a casket was shipped to a Cincinnati crematory, containing the body of Annie Oakley.

Inquiry developed that the funeral had been held at the home of Mrs. Fred Grote, a friend.

Friends admitted they had announced the funeral for Saturday purposely in order that it might be held in absolute privacy without interference from the curious.”

Frank Butler, Oakley’s husband of more than fifty years, died just three weeks later on November 21, 1926.

Annie and her husband Frank are buried in the Brock Cemetery in Greenville, Ohio https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/774/annie-oakley

Annie Oakley is just one of the women profiled in: Statues of Women by Paula C. Henderson