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Cattle Annie
(1879 - 1978) U.S.A.

Cattle Annie

Outlaw

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When it comes to female outlaws in the Old West, none can compare to a couple of teenagers from the Indian Nation of Oklahoma. Cattle Annie and Little Britches, when only 14, rode into legend with the Doolin-Dalton gang. Maybe it is because of their youth and the fact that they went "straight" after reform school. Maybe it is because they only flourished for a couple of short years on the bandit trails before they were caught. Maybe it is because little is known about what happened to them later in life.

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Cattle Annie was born Anna Emmaline McDoulet, to James C. and Rebekah McDoulet of Lawrence County, Kansas. When Anna was four years old, her family moved south to Coyville, Kansas. Some accounts say her father was a lawyer turned preacher, moving around spreading the word of the Gospel, while others claim he was uneducated and dirt poor. All agree that he was honest and respectable. To help make ends meet, Annie went to work as a dishwasher in a hotel.

She also did domestic help and any other odd sort of chores whenever she could. When she was twelve, the family moved to the Cherokee Nation, where she studied in the Mission School by day and worked in a restaurant at night. Two years later, the family moved to the Otoe Reservation near Skiatook, just north of Tulsa. It was here that her nefarious days apparently began.

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Jennie Stevens was born in 1879 to Daniel and Lucy Stevenson of Barton County, Missouri. The first eight years of her life were spent in Missouri. Most accounts agree that her parents were uneducated and poor, but they were honest and respectable, earning a living by farming and raising produce for the surrounding area.

Along about 1887, they moved west to Seneca on the Missouri border, the outer fringes of Indian Territory, where they lived for one year before moving further west into the Creek Nation at Sinnett in the southeast corner of Pawnee County.

Jennie became enthralled with the stories she heard of the notorious Doolin Gang when she was barely fifteen-years-old. When she could stand it no longer, she donned men's clothing, and on her first night out, lost her horse and ended up being dropped at a neighbor's by the gang, whereby she had no recourse but to return home to face her angry father. He gave her a sound thrashing, and together with the taunts of her friends, it was more than she could stand.

She ran away to hook up with a deaf-mute horse dealer named Benjamin Midkiff, whom she married in Newkirk on 5 March 1895, setting up housekeeping in a hotel in Perry. Six weeks later, after discovering she was entertaining men while he was gone, Midkiff returned her to her father, and almost the next day she started her dishonorable rides up and down the Arkansas River.

By the time she was sixteen, Jennie was reported to have married Robert Stephens, whom she left after six months. Whatever her marital relationship, she rode to prison as Jennie Midkiff and into history as Jennie Stevens, the infamous "Little Britches."

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It was the custom in those days to hold country dances whenever the whim and work conditions allowed, and people from miles around in all directions would show up for the occasion. It was here, living practically in the same neighborhood, that the two girls met each other and formed a fast friendship. At one such dance, Annie and Jennie met members of the Doolin Gang. At that time, the Wild Bunch had a hideout in the Creek Nation Cave on the Cimarron River, not too far from Ingalls, a small town east of Stillwater.

It was a common and accepted practice to offer hospitality to anyone who happened to ride up to a farm or ranch house, and if the stranger happened to be an outlaw on the run, he was still treated courteously. Both girls listened to the long and exciting tales of brushes with the law, while sewing up the bullet holes in the clothes after the bandits came in from their raids. It was a wild and exciting time for the girls, and several months after meeting up with the Wild Bunch, they decided to begin their own career of outlawry.

According to one newspaper account, "not only did they dare to wear men's pants in the sanctimonious but scarlet nineties, but rode horses as men rode them, astride, and with heavy forty-fives swinging at their hips."

Both girls thrived in the danger that went with being on the wrong side of the law. By dressing in men's clothing, they could confuse the posses, and with bandits for pals, they easily learned how to ride and shoot with the best of them. Throughout 1895, they made newspaper headlines throughout the Twin Territories from Guthrie to Coffeyville, a big chunk of territory.

Their prime interests lay in peddling whiskey in the Osage and Pawnee Indians, with a hefty dose of horse theft tossed in for good measure, but they never failed to keep their ears and eyes open to the interests of the gang members. They worked together or alone and sometimes with others, often working domestic chores by day and banditry at night, throwing confusion to the lawmen determined to capture them.

Once in eastern Payne County, a posse met Cattle Annie on the trail. Questioned about the "passing of strange men," the girl gave evasive and unsatisfactory answers, but her identity was not known, and she was allowed to go. She immediately sent a message to the Doolin Gang's hiding place that the law was near, and the outlaws "vanished from the district."

In mid-August 1895, Jennie was arrested. It was Sunday evening on the 18th, and Sheriff Frank Lake took her to a restaurant in Pawnee for supper. A guard was placed at the door, but when Jennie finished eating, she darted out the back door, ripped of her dress, seized a horse and absconded into the night. Several officers were instantly in pursuit, but she escaped, and the papers the next morning had a field day with news of Jennie riding out "...on the horse [stolen] from a deputy marshal who had arrested her for selling whiskey to the Indians." It was prime fodder for her legend.

The following night, Annie and Jennie were tracked down near Pawnee by Marshals Bill Tilghman and Steve Burke. Burke ran around the house and remained outside, while Tilghman charged inside. Both girls gave fight, and several shots rang out, as the girls made their way to a back window to escape. Cattle Annie was caught by Burke, as she climbed out the window, and was wrestled to the ground, but Little Britches escaped and gave the officers a long chase.

It was said that "Little Britches" fired at Tilghman with a Winchester rifle, and he shot back and killed her horse. She is then supposed to have thrown dirt in his face, and bit and scratched him, and tried to pull a pistol on him. Bill finally overpowered her, and gave her a spanking. Although she fought wildly, Jennie was finally subdued, and both girls were taken to jail.

Annie and Jennie were tried before Judge Andrew G. Curtain Bierer of the Fourth Judicial District of Oklahoma Territory on the charge of stealing horses and peddling spirits to the Indians. Annie received a one year sentence, was delivered on 4 September 1895 to the Framingham reformatory for women in Massachusetts, and was paroled a few months later, due to poor health. She refused to go home, saying she would return to her life of crime, and remained at Framingham until she could procure work as a domestic.

On 18 April 1898, she went to work for Mrs. Mary Daniels in Sherborn, just south of Framingham. A few months later, she went to New York, where some stories claim she died of consumption in Bellevue Hospital. Other stories claim Annie returned to Oklahoma and married Earl Frost of Perry in 1901, had two children, and divorced Frost in 1909. Information in the museum in Guthrie, Oklahoma claims she married second to J. W. Roach of Oklahoma City and died in 1978.

Jennie was held for two months in the Guthrie jail, the territorial capital of Oklahoma, as a material witness in a murder trial. She had been working as a domestic in a home where she had witnessed a man shoot another. Her two-year penal sentence began in Framingham reformatory in Massachusetts on 11 November 1895, and she was discharged on 7 October 1896 for good behavior.

She returned to her parents in Sinnett, Oklahoma Territory. What finally happened to Jennie is a mystery. There are a variety of stories that claim she married, settled down, and raised a family, living an exemplary life in Tulsa, but none of these stories ever gives any times, places, or names.

Cattle Annie and Little Britches rode the outlaw trails for two short years, but it was two years which gave the marshals and peace officers in the Twin Territories no end of trouble.

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We received:

Cattle Annie was my aunt - she did not remain 'back east' after reform school. She returned to Oklahoma, married, had 2 sons (who were mainly raised by their father & paternal grandparents), divorced, traveled with the XIT Wild West Show, remarried, became a devout Christian, devoted wife & very respected member of the community. She remained very active right up to the end. She learned to water ski the summer she was 72 (after having had a broken hip), but had to give it up because it made her 'too tired'. She went surfing with her great grandson at age 80, because according to her, her grandson was too big a 'fuddy duddy'. She was truly a remarkable lady. She lived in Oklahoma City up to the time of her death & is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery.

Ann S.E.

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Source: Lee Paul - http://www.theoutlaws.com<

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