Annie Oakley was an American sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. She developed hunting skills as a child to provide for her impoverished family in western Ohio. At 15, she won a shooting contest against experienced marksman Frank E. Butler, whom she later married. The pair joined Buffalo Bill in 1885, performing in Europe before royalty and other heads of state.
About Annie Oakley in brief
Annie Oakley was an American sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Oakley developed hunting skills as a child to provide for her impoverished family in western Ohio. At 15, she won a shooting contest against experienced marksman Frank E. Butler, whom she later married. The pair joined Buffalo Bill in 1885, performing in Europe before royalty and other heads of state. After a bad rail accident in 1901, she had to settle for a less-taxing routine, and toured in a play written about her career. Her stage acts were filmed for one of Thomas Edison’s earliest Kinetoscopes in 1894. Since her death, her story has been adapted for stage musicals and films, including Annie Get Your Gun. Annie was born Phoebe Ann Mosey on August 13, 1860, in a log cabin less than two miles northwest of Woodland, now Willowdell, in Darke County, Ohio, a rural county along the state’s border with Indiana. Her parents were Quakers of English descent from Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania. Her siblings were Mary Jane, Lydia, Elizabeth, Sarah Ellen, Catherine, John, Hulda and a stillborn infant brother in 1865. Annie’s father, who had fought in the War of 1812, became an invalid from hypothermia during a blizzard in late 1865 and died of pneumonia in early 1866 at age 66. Her mother later married Daniel Brumbaugh, had another daughter, Emily, and was widowed once again.
Annie did not regularly attend school as aChild, although she did attend later in childhood and in adulthood. 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. 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 per 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, enduring mental and physical abuse. Annie ran away from the Edingtons in 1872, returning to her mother’s home around the age of 15. According to biographer Shirl Kasper, it was only at this point that Annie met and lived with the Edingsons. She also sold the game to hotels in northern Ohio, such as Charles and Gberger Greenville, who shipped it to shops in Cincinnati and other cities. Her skill paid off the mortgage on her mom’s farm when Annie was 15. On Thanksgiving Day 1875, Annie was being performed in Cincinnati Traveling Traveling Show with Frank Butler, an Irish immigrant and former marksman and dog trainer. The hotel owner placed a USD 100 bet that Butler could beat any fancy shooter. Annie won the match between the 15-year-old and Butler.
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This page is based on the article Annie Oakley published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
