The noose was already around Ella Watson’s neck when the men forced her into the buggy, and the cattle barons of Wyoming had decided that this time there would be no trial, no judge, and no chance to talk her way out. She and her partner Jim Averell had been dragged from their ranch on the Sweetwater River, and now, on July 20, 1889, a group of landowners hoisted them both onto the branch of a cottonwood tree. Ella was hanged from that tree alongside the man who had helped her build a small ranch and a homestead claim on 160 acres of good grazing land. The men who did the lynching were never tried and never brought to justice, and the newspapers that reported the hanging spread a story across the United States that made Ella Watson into a villain, a female outlaw of the West, a woman who had supposedly been stealing cattle from the big ranchers all along.
But the truth of who Ella Watson really was, and how she came to be hanged from that cottonwood tree, is a far more complicated story than the one the papers printed, and it begins years earlier with a young woman who married too young, left an abusive husband, and moved west to a territory where the law was almost nonexistent. Ella Watson married her first husband when she was only eighteen years old. He proved to be abusive, and she left him, which was a rare and difficult thing for a woman to do in those days. She moved to Rawlins, Wyoming Territory, where she found work in a hotel, and then she did something that was almost unheard of for a woman in Wyoming in those early days: she filed a homestead claim of her own, 160 acres of land near the Sweetwater River, and started raising cattle.
In the small town near the river, she met Jim Averell, a man who wore many hats. He was the postmaster, a land surveyor, the justice of the peace, and he ran a small general store. Ella helped him in the store, and he probably helped her with her homestead claim, and between the two of them they built a small but decent ranch. This was a time when there was almost no law in Wyoming, and the cattle business was booming.
The big cattle barons owned enormous ranches, and their herds were allowed to roam freely, wandering across the open range and sometimes mixing with the smaller herds of the homesteaders. At first, this was not a big problem, because the cattle barons were still making high profits, and it was hard to prove just who owned which cattle when brands were involved. But then drought hit the area, and the grazing land became overused from so many herds, and water became an issue. The richest cattlemen wanted to fence off sections of their property, and they began to resent the small ranchers and homesteaders who were claiming land and water for themselves.
The dispute between Ella Watson and the rich cattle barons was, at its heart, a fight over water and grazing land, the same kind of deadly conflict that we have heard about in countless Western stories and movies. The cattle barons accused Ella and Jim Averell of rustling cattle, of branding calves that did not belong to them, and of stealing from the big herds that roamed the range. There really was no evidence of any of these claims, but the accusation was enough. On that July day in 1889, a group of landowners went to Ella’s cabin, forced her into a buggy, and then went after Averell.
They were both hanged from the cottonwood tree, and afterward, the stories began. The newspapers printed that Ella had been running a house of prostitution in town, that she had been stealing cattle, and that she and Averell had been a pair of rustlers who deserved what they got. These stories spread across the United States and made Ella Watson into a villain, a female outlaw of the West, and the men who lynched her were never held accountable for what they did. Not all women in the West met such a tragic end, but many of them had to grow up tough just to survive.
Calamity Jane was one of those women who had to learn to shoot, ride horses, and be just as rough and tough as the men in the West. She was born on May 1, 1852, as Martha Jane Canary, the eldest of six children. Her parents, Robert and Charlotte Canary, were a rough and hard-living couple who moved the family from place to place looking for work. Her mother died when Martha Jane was still young, only twelve years old, and she was quickly forced into doing whatever she could to survive.
As she grew into a tall, stocky woman, she was capable of doing work that most men would have done. She moved to Deadwood, South Dakota, and it was there that the legend of Calamity Jane really began. She met Wild Bill Hickok, and rumors flew that they were romantically involved, although this is questionable. She dressed like a man, swore like a man, and drank just like the men did.
She worked as an army scout and was a sharpshooter with a rifle. Soon, Martha Jane became known as Calamity Jane and became a Western legend. She made history by touring with Buffalo Bill’s famous Wild West show in 1895, showcasing her sharp-shooting skills. But despite her fame, Calamity Jane did not have a very happy or easy life.
She was a heavy drinker and died an early death. She is buried next to Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota, a final resting place that keeps her legend alive to this day. Another woman who had to disguise herself to survive was Cathay Williams, an African-American woman who was born the daughter of a slave and a free man in Jackson County, Missouri. After the Civil War was over and the slaves were set free, there were few jobs or opportunities for anyone, but especially for an African-American woman like her.
During the war, when she was just seventeen, she had worked for the Union Army as a cook and done laundry for the soldiers, which enabled her to travel all over the country under General Philip Sheridan. After the war ended, Cathay made the decision to join the Army, but since women were not allowed to enlist, she disguised herself as a young man. She was described as being tall with dark skin and short dark hair, so it was not hard for her to be mistaken for a man. What was hard was passing the physical exam, but somehow the Army doctor did only a very quick exam, and she passed.
She enlisted using the name William Cathay and served for about two years, until repeated illness sent her to the hospital several times, and eventually a doctor discovered her gender. She was given an honorable discharge on October 14, 1868. After her discharge from the Army, Cathay joined what came to be known as the Buffalo Soldiers, and she is remembered today as the first official female African-American to serve in the United States Army. Years later, the story of Cathay Williams, the first African-American woman to serve in the military, was written about in the St.
Louis Times. Then there were the Basset sisters, Annie and Josie, the daughters of Herbert and Elizabeth Basset. Herbert was an educated man who had been a teacher and later served in the Union Army. During the Gold Rush years, his brother Samuel headed west, and Herbert decided to move his family west as well, due to his health.
The family ended up settling in Browns Hole, Colorado, and his wife Elizabeth renamed it Browns Park because of its natural beauty. The family settled down there and built a small cabin, and they started ranching. Their family grew to four children, and Herbert tended to be quieter and calmer than his beautiful, wild wife. The Basset family was very social and welcomed everyone into their home, including strangers, church-going neighbors, and travelers, and many times even outlaws hiding from the law.
Butch Cassidy was one of those famous outlaws, and he was romantically involved with both Annie and Josie Basset at different times. Members of the Butch Cassidy gang, the Wild Bunch, were welcome visitors to the Basset ranch. Elizabeth, Annie and Josie’s mother, was a beautiful woman who could ride, rope, shoot, and rustle cattle just as well as the men, and the men who were devoted to her would do anything she asked them to do, even if it was breaking the law. Her two daughters took after her, and after her death, when she was only thirty-seven, they took over running the ranch.
By this time, there was a feud going on between the small ranchers and the big cattle barons, particularly the Two Bar Ranch. Annie was involved with several of the outlaws that hung out at the ranch, and she became engaged to Matt Rash, but before they were married, the owner of the Two Bar Ranch brought in a hired gun named Tom Horn to hunt down cattle rustlers. Matt Rash was shot and died after this. Things escalated between the two families, and Annie would drive many of the Two Bar Ranch cattle over a cliff in revenge.
At one point, she stood trial for cattle rustling but was acquitted. She was so well-liked that when she was acquitted, the cattle ranchers gave her a parade in her honor. Josie Basset, on the other hand, was the more daredevil of the two girls, while Annie was more domesticated, but Josie could hold her own on the ranch, riding, roping, shooting, and rustling cattle. Josie was married five times and divorced four of those husbands, and the fifth died of poisoning.
Josie was charged with his murder but was acquitted. In her later years, she was asked if she had poisoned her fifth husband, and her answer was a smile. She simply said that some husbands are harder to get rid of than others. Josie also stood trial for cattle rustling, but she was also acquitted.
These are just a few of the stories of the women of the Wild West, and they are fascinating stories. These women were labeled as villains, but were they really villains, or were they just women ahead of their times, trying to survive in a rough man’s world? In the case of Ella Watson, her story is a sad one, a woman caught up in a man’s world and unable to protect herself against rich, drunken men who decided that their cattle, their water, and their land were worth more than her life. The other women, like Calamity Jane, Cathay Williams, and the Basset sisters, managed to survive, sometimes by being tougher than the men around them, sometimes by hiding who they really were, and sometimes by simply refusing to be beaten.
But they all earned their reputations as women outlaws, whether they deserved those reputations or not, and their stories have become a permanent part of the legend of the American West.
