Annie Oakley
Sharp Shooter
born Phoebe Ann Mosey
August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926
Annie's parents were Quakers of English descent from Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania: Susan Wise, age 18,[8][9] and Jacob Mosey, born 1799, age 49, married in 1848. They moved to a rented farm (later purchased with a mortgage) in Patterson Township, Darke County, Ohio, sometime around 1855. Annie's sister Sarah Ellen was born in Darke County in 1857.[citation needed]
Born in 1860, Annie was the sixth of Jacob and Susan's seven children.[10] Her father, who had fought in the War of 1812, died in 1866 at age 65, from pneumonia and overexposure in freezing weather. Her mother married Daniel Brumbaugh, had one more child, Emily, and was widowed for a second time.
Because of poverty following the death of her father, Annie did not regularly attend school as a child, although she did attend later in childhood and in adulthood.[11] On March 15, 1870, at age nine, Annie was admitted to the Darke County Infirmary, along with elder sister Sarah Ellen. According to her autobiography, she was put in the care of the Infirmary's superintendent, Samuel Crawford Edington and his wife Nancy, who taught her to sew and decorate. Beginning in the spring of 1870, she was "bound out" to a local family to help care for their infant son, on the false promise of fifty cents a week and an education. The couple had originally wanted someone who could pump water, cook, and who was bigger. She spent about two years in near-slavery to them where she endured mental and physical abuse. She would often have to do boys' work. One time the wife put Annie out in the freezing cold, without shoes, as a punishment because she had fallen asleep over some darning.[12] Annie referred to them as "the wolves". Even in her autobiography, she kindly never told the couple's real name.[13] However, the 1870 U.S. Census suggests that "the wolves" were the Abram Boose family of neighboring Preble County.[14][15] When, in the spring of 1872, she reunited with her family, her mother had married a third time, to Joseph Shaw.
Annie began trapping at a young age, and shooting and hunting by age eight to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold the hunted game for money to locals in Greenville, as well as restaurants and hotels in southern Ohio. Her skill eventually paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm when Annie was 15.[16]
Debut and marriage
Traveling show marksman and former dog trainer Frank E. Butler (1850–1926), an Irish immigrant, placed a $100 bet per side (worth $2,148 today) with Cincinnati hotel owner Jack Frost, that he, Butler, could beat any local fancy shooter. The hotelier arranged a shooting match between Butler and the 15-year-old Annie saying, "The last opponent Butler expected was a five-foot-tall 15-year old girl named Annie."[17] After missing on his 25th shot, Butler lost the match and the bet. He soon began courting Annie, and they married on August 23, 1876. They did not have children.[17]Annie soon became well known throughout the region. On Thanksgiving Day 1875,[17] the Baughman and Butler shooting act was being performed in Cincinnati.
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