Good Black News (@goodblacknews.bsky.social)

BHM100*: Mary Fields aka “Stagecoach Mary” – 1st Black Woman Contracted to Deliver the U.S. Mail Nicknames in the Old West had to be earned, not given. “Stagecoach Mary” was no exception. In 1895, “Stagecoach Mary” Fields became the first Black woman contracted by the postal service to deliver the U.S. mail. With her guns and tough demeanor, Fields unfailingly protected her stagecoach and her mail route from wolves and bandits alike. Born enslaved in Tennessee in the early 1830s, once Fields was emancipated at the the end of the Civil War, she traveled around working odd jobs until she eventually made her way to a convent in Toledo, Ohio, working as a groundskeeper and game hunter, and eventually moved to Cascade, Montana and did the same at a different convent. https://goodblacknews.org/2026/02/06/bhm100-mary-fields-aka-stagecoach-mary-1st-black-woman-contracted-to-deliver-the-u-s-mail/