|
Buffalo Bill |
 |
| Born |
William Frederick Cody
February 26, 1846
near
Le Claire, Iowa, U.S. |
| Died |
January 10, 1917 (aged 70)
Denver,
Colorado, U.S. |
| Cause of death |
Kidney failure |
| Resting place |
Lookout Mountain,
Golden, Colorado
 39°43′57″N
105°14′17″W |
| Other names |
Buffalo Bill Cody |
| Occupation |
Army scout, Pony Express rider, ranch
hand, wagon train driver, buffalo hunter, fur trapper, gold
prospector, showman |
| Known for |
Buffalo Bill Wild West shows which provided
education and entertainment about bronco riding, handling bovine
and equine livestock, roping, and other herdsmen skills seen in
present day rodeos |
| Spouse(s) |
Louisa Frederici (1843–1921) (m. 1866–1917)
|
| Children |
- Arta Cody (1866-1904)
- Kit Carson Cody (1870-1876)
- Orra Maude Cody (1872-1883)
- Irma Louisa Cody Garlow (1883-1918)
Kit died of
scarlet fever in April 1876, and his daughter Orra died in
1883 |
| Parents |
- Isaac Cody
- Mary Ann Bosnell Laycock Cody
|
| Awards |
Indian Wars Congressional Medal of Honor |
| Signature |
 |
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody (February 26, 1846 –
January 10, 1917) was an American soldier,
bison hunter and
showman.
He was born in the
Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of
Iowa), in
Le Claire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved
to the
Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the
Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US Army as a scout. One of
the most colorful figures of the
American Old West, Buffalo Bill became famous for the shows he
organized with
cowboy
themes, which he toured in Great Britain and Europe as well as the
United States.
Nickname and work
William Frederick Cody ("Buffalo Bill") got his nickname after the
American Civil War when he had a contract to supply
Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with
buffalo meat. Cody earned the nickname by killing 4,280
American bison (commonly known as buffalo) in eighteen months,
(1867–1868).[1]
Cody and William Comstock competed in a buffalo-shooting match over the
exclusive right to use the name, which Cody won by killing 68 bison to
Comstock's 48.[2]
Cody had documented service as a soldier during the
Civil War and as Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry during the
Plains Wars. He claimed to have had many jobs, including as a
trapper, bullwhacker, "Fifty-Niner"
in
Colorado, a
Pony Express rider in 1860, wagonmaster,
stagecoach driver, and a hotel manager, but historians have had
difficulty documenting them, and he may have fabricated some for
publicity.
He became world famous for his
Wild West shows, which toured in Great Britain and Europe. Audiences
were enthusiastic about seeing a piece of the
American West.[3]
The adventure story writer
Emilio Salgari met Buffalo Bill in Italy, saw his show, and later
featured him as a hero in some of his novels.
Early life
and education
William Frederick Cody was born on February 26, 1846 on a farm just
outside of
Le Claire, Iowa.[4]
He was baptized as William Cody in the Dixie Union Chapel in Peel County
(present-day Peel Region),
Ontario, Canada in 1847, not far from his family's farm. His parents
Isaac and Mary Cody were
Canadians. The Chapel was built with Cody money and the land was
donated by Philip Cody of Toronto Township.[5]
The Cody family were originally
Quakers
and opposed to slavery. They had emigrated from the United States with
other Quaker families from Vermont, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania,
shortly before or after the Revolutionary War, when slavery was still
legal in those states, to buy land and farm in York, Peel, and Ontario
counties.
In 1853, Isaac Cody sold his land in rural
Scott County, Iowa for $2000 and he and his family moved to
Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas Territory.[4]
In these years before the Civil War, Kansas was high with emotion and
physical conflict on both sides of the slavery question. Invited to
speak at Rively's store, a local trading post where pro-slavery men
often held meetings, Cody's father gave an
antislavery speech that angered the crowd, which threatened to kill
him if he didn't step down. One man in the crowd attempted to make good
on the threat, jumping up and stabbing the elder Cody twice with a bowie
knife. Cody's father would have died from his wounds had it not been for
Rively, the store's owner, who rushed him to safety. Isaac Cody never
fully recovered from his injuries.
In Kansas, the family was frequently persecuted by pro-slavery
supporters, forcing Cody's father to spend much of his time away from
home. His enemies learned of a planned visit to his family and plotted
to kill him on the way. The young Cody, despite his youth and the fact
that he was ill, rode 30 miles (48 km)
to warn his father. Cody's father went to Cleveland, Ohio to organize a
colony of thirty families to bring back to Kansas. During his return
trip he caught a cold which, compounded by the lingering effects of his
stabbing and complications from kidney disease, led to Isaac Cody's
death in April, 1857.[6][7]
After the father's death, the Cody family suffered financially. At
age 11, Bill Cody took a job with a freight carrier as a "boy extra." He
would ride up and down the length of a wagon train, and deliver messages
to the drivers and workmen. Next he joined
Johnston's Army as an unofficial member of the scouts assigned to
guide the Army to
Utah to put
down a rumored rebellion by the
Mormon population of
Salt Lake City.[7]
According to Cody's account in Buffalo Bill's Own Story, the
Utah
War was where he first began his career as an "Indian fighter".
Presently the moon rose, dead ahead of me; and painted boldly
across its face was the figure of an Indian. He wore this war-bonnet
of the
Sioux, at his shoulder was a rifle pointed at someone in the
river-bottom 30 feet (9 m) below; in another second he would drop
one of my friends. I raised my old muzzle-loader and fired. The
figure collapsed, tumbled down the bank and landed with a splash in
the water. 'What is it?' called McCarthy, as he hurried back. 'It's
over there in the water.' 'Hi!' he cried. 'Little Billy's killed an
Indian all by himself!' So began my career as an Indian fighter.
At the age of 14, Cody was struck by gold fever, but on his way to
the gold fields, he met an agent for the
Pony Express. He signed with them, and after building several
stations and corrals, Cody was given a job as a rider, which he kept
until he was called home to his sick mother's bedside.[1]
Cody was active in the concordant bodies of
Freemasonry, being initiated in Platte Valley Lodge No. 32, North
Platte, Nebraska, on March 5, 1870. He received his 2nd and 3rd degrees
on April 2, 1870, and January 10, 1871, respectively. He became a
Knight Templar in 1889 and received his 32 degree in
Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in 1894.[8][9]
Military service
After his mother recovered, Cody wished to enlist as a soldier, but
was refused because of his age. He began working with a United States
freight
caravan which delivered supplies to
Fort Laramie. In 1863 he enlisted as a
teamster with the rank of
Private in Company H,
7th Kansas Cavalry and served until discharged in 1865.[1][7]
The next year Cody married Louisa Frederici, and they had four
children together. Two died young in Rochester, NY. They and a third
child are buried in
Mount Hope Cemetery, in the City of Rochester.[10]
From 1868 until 1872, Cody was employed as a scout by the
United States Army. Part of the time he scouted for Indians. At
other times, he hunted and killed bison to supply the Army and the
Kansas Pacific Railroad. In January 1872, Cody was a scout for
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia's highly publicized royal
hunt.[11]
Medal of Honor
In 1872, Cody was awarded a
Medal of Honor for "gallantry in action" while serving as a civilian
scout for the
3rd Cavalry Regiment. In 1917, the U.S. Army—after
Congress revised the standards for award of the medal—removed from the
rolls 911 medals previously awarded either to civilians, or for actions
that would not warrant a Medal of Honor under the new higher standards.
Among those revoked was Cody's.
In 1977, Dr.
Mary Edwards Walker's medal was restored, and other reviews began.
Cody's medal—along with those given to four other civilian scouts—was
re-instated on June 12, 1989.[12][13]
Buffalo
Bill's Wild West
Buffalo Bill's Wild West, 1890
In December 1872, Cody traveled to Chicago to make his stage debut
with friend
Texas Jack Omohundro in The Scouts of the Prairie, one of the
original
Wild West shows produced by
Ned Buntline.[14]
During the 1873–1874 season, Cody and Omohundro invited their friend
James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok to join them in a new play called
Scouts of the Plains.[15]
The troupe toured for ten years. Cody's part typically included an
1876 incident at the
Warbonnet Creek, where he claimed to have
scalped
a
Cheyenne warrior.[16]
In 1883, in the area of
North Platte,
Nebraska, Cody founded "Buffalo Bill's Wild West", a circus-like
attraction that toured annually. (Despite popular misconception, the
word "show" was not a part of the title.)[3]
With his show, Cody traveled throughout the United States and Europe and
made many contacts. He stayed, for instance, in
Garden City, Kansas, in the presidential suite of the former Windsor
Hotel. He was befriended by the mayor and state representative, a
frontier scout, rancher, and hunter named
Charles "Buffalo" Jones.[17]
In 1893, Cody changed the title to "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and
Congress of Rough Riders of the World". The show began with a parade on
horseback, with participants from horse-culture groups that included US
and other military,
American Indians, and performers from all over the world in their
best attire.
Turks,
Gauchos,
Arabs,
Mongols
and
Georgians, displayed their distinctive horses and colorful costumes.
Visitors would see main events, feats of skill, staged races, and
sideshows. Many historical western figures participated in the show. For
example,
Sitting Bull appeared with a band of 20 of his braves.
Cody's headline performers were well known in their own right. People
such as
Annie Oakley and her husband
Frank Butler did sharp shooting, together with the likes of
Gabriel Dumont, not to mention
Lillian Smith. Performers re-enacted the riding of the
Pony Express, Indian attacks on wagon trains, and stagecoach
robberies. The show was said to end with a re-enactment of
Custer's Last Stand, in which Cody portrayed General Custer, but
this is more legend than fact. The finale was typically a portrayal of
an Indian attack on a settler's cabin. Cody would ride in with an
entourage of cowboys to defend a settler and his family. This finale was
featured predominantly as early as 1886, but vanished after 1907; in
total, it was used in 23 of 33 tours.[18]
Another celebrity appearing on the show was
Calamity Jane, as a storyteller as of
1893. The
show influenced many 20th-century portrayals of "the West" in cinema and
literature.[3]
With his profits, Cody purchased a 4,000-acre (16 km2)
ranch near
North Platte, Nebraska, in 1886.
Scout's Rest Ranch included an eighteen-room mansion and a large
barn for winter storage of the show's livestock.
In 1887, Cody took the show to Great Britain in celebration of the
Jubilee year of
Queen Victoria. It
played in London before going on to
Birmingham and
Salford near
Manchester, where it stayed for five months.[19]
In 1889, the show toured Europe, and in 1890 Cody met
Pope Leo XIII. He set up an independent exhibition near the
Chicago World's Fair of 1893, which greatly contributed to his
popularity. It vexed the promoters of the fair, who had first rejected
his request to participate.
In 1908,
Pawnee Bill and Buffalo Bill joined forces and created the "Two
Bills" show. That show was foreclosed on when it was playing in Denver,
Colorado.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Tours Europe
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West toured Europe eight times, the first four
tours were between 1887 and 1892, and the last four were from 1902 to
1906.[20]
The Wild West first came to London in 1887 as part of the American
Exhibition[21]
that coincided with the
Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The Prince of Wales, later
King Edward VII, requested a private preview of the Wild West
performance, he was impressed enough to arrange a command performance
for
Queen Victoria. The Queen enjoyed the show and meeting the
performers, setting the stage for another command performance on June
20, 1887 for her Jubilee guests. Royalty from all over Europe attended,
including the future
Kaiser Wilhelm II and future
King George V,[22]
these royal encounters provided Buffalo Bill’s Wild West an endorsement
and publicity that ensured its success. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West closed
its successful London run in October 1887 after over 300 performances
and more than two and a half million tickets sold.[23]
The tour made stops in Birmingham and Manchester before returning to the
U.S. in May 1888 for a short summer tour.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West returned to Europe in May 1889 as part of
the
Exposition Universelle in Paris, France, an event that commemorated
the 100th anniversary of the
Storming of the Bastille and featured the debut of the
Eiffel Tower.[24]
The tour moved to the South of France and Barcelona, Spain, then on to
Italy. While in Rome, a Wild West delegation was received by
Pope Leo XIII.[25]
Buffalo Bill was disappointed that the condition of the
Colosseum did not allow it to be a venue; however, at
Verona,
the Wild West did perform in the ancient
Roman amphitheater.[26]
The tour finished with stops in Austria-Hungary and Germany.
The Wild West tour returned to Germany in 1891 and moved through
Belgium and the Netherlands before returning to Great Britain to close
the season. The 1892 tour was confined to Great Britain and featured
another command performance for Queen Victoria. The tour finished with a
sixth month run in London before leaving Europe for nearly a decade.[27]
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West returned to Europe in December 1902 with a
fourteen-week run in London complete with a visit from King Edward VII
and the future King George V. The Wild West traveled throughout Great
Britain during the 1902-03 tour as well as the 1904 tour, performing in
nearly every city large enough to support it.[28]
The 1905 tour began in April with a two-month run in Paris and proceeded
to the rest of France, performing mostly one-night stands, concluding in
December. The final tour of 1906 began in France on March 4, and then
quickly moved on to Italy for two months. The Wild West then traveled
east performing in Austria, the Balkans, Hungary, Romania, and the
Ukraine before coming back west to visit Poland, Bohemia (later Czech
Republic), Germany, and Belgium.[29]
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West was enormously successful in Europe making
Buffalo Bill an international celebrity and an American icon.[30]
It was a genuine American cultural export;
Mark Twain commented, “…It is often said on the other side of the
water that none of the exhibitions which we send to England are purely
and distinctly American. If you will take the Wild West show over there
you can remove that reproach.”[31]
The Wild West brought an exotic foreign world to life for its European
audiences, allowing a last glimpse at the fading American frontier.
Life in Cody,
Wyoming
Deck card signed by Buffalo Bill
In 1895, Cody was instrumental in the founding of
Cody, the seat of
Park County in northwestern
Wyoming.
The
Old Trail Town museum is at the center of the community and honors
the traditions of Western life. Cody first passed through the region in
the 1870s. He was so impressed by the development possibilities from
irrigation, rich soil, grand scenery, hunting, and proximity to
Yellowstone Park that he returned in the mid-1890s to start a town.
He brought with him associates for whom streets were named: Beck, Alger,
Rumsey, Bleistein and Salsbury. The town was incorporated in 1901.
In November 1902, Cody opened the
Irma Hotel, which he named after his daughter. He envisioned a
growing number of tourists coming to Cody via the recently opened
Burlington rail line. He expected that they would proceed up the Cody
Road along the North Fork of the Shoshone River to visit Yellowstone
Park. To accommodate travelers, Cody completed construction of the
Wapiti Inn and
Pahaska Tepee in 1905 along the Cody Road
[32]
with the assistance of artist and rancher
Abraham Archibald Anderson.
Cody also established the
TE Ranch, located on the South Fork of the Shoshone River about
thirty-five miles from Cody. When he acquired the TE property, he sent
cattle from Nebraska and South Dakota. His new herd carried the TE
brand. The late 1890s were relatively prosperous years for "Buffalo
Bill's Wild West", and he bought more land to add to the TE Ranch.
Eventually Cody held around 8,000 acres (32 km²) of private land for
grazing operations and ran about 1,000 head of cattle. He also operated
a
dude ranch, pack horse camping trips, and big game hunting business
at and from the TE Ranch. In his spacious ranch house, he entertained
notable guests from Europe and America.
Irrigation
Larry McMurtry, along with historians such as RL Wilson, asserts
that at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, Buffalo Bill Cody was the
most recognizable celebrity on earth.[3]
While Cody's show brought appreciation for the Western and American
Indian cultures, he saw the
American West change dramatically during his life. Bison herds,
which had once numbered in the millions, were now threatened with
extinction. Railroads crossed the plains,
barbed wire, and other types of fences divided the land for farmers
and ranchers, and the once-threatening Indian tribes were now confined
to reservations.
Wyoming's
resources of coal,
oil
and natural gas were beginning to be exploited toward the end of his
life.[3]
Even the Shoshone River was dammed for
hydroelectric power as well as for
irrigation. In 1897 and 1899 Cody and his associates acquired from
the State of Wyoming the right to take water from the Shoshone River to
irrigate about 169,000 acres (680 km2) of land in the
Big Horn Basin. They began developing a canal to carry water
diverted from the river, but their plans did not include a water storage
reservoir. Cody and his associates were unable to raise sufficient
capital to complete their plan. Early in 1903 they joined with the
Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners in urging the federal government to
step in and help with irrigation development in the valley.
The Shoshone Project became one of the first federal water
development projects undertaken by the newly formed Reclamation Service,
later to become known as the Bureau of Reclamation. After Reclamation
took over the project in 1903, investigating engineers recommended
constructing a dam on the Shoshone River in the canyon west of Cody.
Construction of the Shoshone Dam started in 1905, a year after the
Shoshone Project was authorized. When it was completed in 1910, it was
the tallest dam in the world. Almost three decades after its
construction, the name of the dam and reservoir was changed to
Buffalo Bill Dam by an act of Congress to honor Cody.[33]
Life in Staten Island, New York
Cody brought his "Wild West" show to an area of
Mariners Harbor called Erastina (named for
Staten Island promoter
Erastus Wiman) for two seasons from June to October in 1886 and
again in 1887. During the winter of 1886, the show moved indoors to
Madison Square Garden. His show, featuring Native Americans,
trick riders, "the smallest
cowboy"
and
sharpshooters (including
Annie Oakley), is said to have drawn millions of visitors to the
island.
His 1879 autobiography is titled The Life and Adventures of
Buffalo Bill.[34]
A final autobiography, titled "The Great West That Was: 'Buffalo Bill's'
Life Story," was serialized in Hearst's International Magazine
from August 1916 to July 1917[35]
and ghostwritten by
James J. Montague.[36]
It contained a number of errors, in part because of its completion after
Cody's death in January 1917.[35]
Death
Cody's funeral procession in Denver
Cody died of
kidney
failure on January 10, 1917, surrounded by family and friends at his
sister's house in
Denver.
Cody was baptized into the
Catholic Church the day before his death by Father Christopher Walsh
of the Denver Cathedral.[37][38][39]
He received a full masonic funeral.[8]
Upon the news of Cody's death, tributes were made by King
George V of the United Kingdom, Kaiser
Wilhelm II of
Imperial Germany, and President
Woodrow Wilson.[40]
His funeral was in Denver at the Elks Lodge Hall. The Wyoming governor
John B. Kendrick, a friend of Cody's, led the funeral procession.
Cody's grave in Golden, CO
Cody's grave lies atop
Lookout Mountain in
Golden, Colorado.
At the time of his death, Cody's once great fortune had dwindled to
less than $100,000. He left his burial arrangements up to his wife
Louisa. She said that he had always said he wanted to be buried on
Lookout Mountain, which was corroborated by their daughter Irma, Cody's
sisters, and family friends. But other family members joined the people
of Cody to say Buffalo Bill should be buried in the town he founded. The
controversy continued.[citation
needed]
On June 3, 1917, Cody was buried on Colorado's
Lookout Mountain in
Golden, west of the city of Denver, on the edge of the
Rocky Mountains, overlooking the
Great Plains. His burial site was selected by his sister, Mary
Decker.[41]
In 1948 the Cody chapter of the
American Legion offered a reward for the "return" of the body, so
the Denver chapter mounted a guard over the grave until a deeper shaft
could be blasted into the rock.[40]
Philosophy
As a frontier scout, he respected Native Americans and supported
their rights. He employed many more natives than Sitting Bull, as he
thought his show offered them good pay for a better life. He called them
"the former foe, present friend, the American", and once said, "Every
Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken
promises and broken treaties by the government."[3]
Buffalo Bill also supported the rights of women.[3]
He said, "What we want to do is give women even more liberty than they
have. Let them do any kind of work they see fit, and if they do it as
well as men, give them the same pay."[42]
In his shows the Indians were usually depicted attacking stagecoaches
and wagon trains in order to be driven off by cowboys and soldiers. He
also had the wives and children of his Indian performers set up camp –
as they would in the homelands – as part of the show, so that the paying
public could see the human side of the "fierce warriors"; that they were
families like any other, just part of a different culture.[3]
He supported
conservation by speaking out against hide-hunting and pushing for a
hunting season.[3]
Legacy and honors
Buffalo Bill Cody in 1903
Buffalo Bill and his exploits became well known in American culture
and he was portrayed in many literary works, television shows, and
movies, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, when they were most
popular. He is featured as a character in the Broadway musical
Annie Get Your Gun.
He was honored by two U.S. postage stamps.[3]
One was a 15¢
Great Americans series postage stamp.
On television, his character was featured on such television programs
as
Bat Masterson and even
Bonanza.
His persona has been portrayed as that of an elder statesman or a
flamboyant, self-serving exhibitionist.
In 1959, the actor
Britt Lomond played Cody in the episode "A Legend of Buffalo Bill"
of the
ABC/Warner
Brothers
western
television series,
Colt .45, starring
Wayde Preston as the fictitious undercover agent and pistol salesman
Christopher Colt.[43]
A
free verse poem on
mortality
by
E. E. Cummings uses Buffalo Bill as an image of life and vibrancy.
The poem is commonly known by its first two lines: "Buffalo Bill's /
defunct". In Poetry, edited by J. Hunter, it is titled
"portrait". The poet expresses Buffalo Bill's showmanship by describing
his "watersmooth-silver / stallion", and using a staccato beat for the
quick shooting of
clay pigeons.
A 1976 feature film,
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
by
Robert Altman, gives deeply critical depiction of Cody and his Wild
West show, with Cody portrayed as a lying buffoon who cannot separate
fiction from reality.
The
Buffalo Bills, an
NFL team based in
Buffalo, New York, was named after Buffalo Bill. Prior to that
team's existence, other early football teams (such as the
Buffalo Bills of the
AAFC) used the nickname, solely due to name recognition, as Bill
Cody had no special connection with the city.
The art cover for
Tyler, The Creator's album
Goblin features a picture of
Buffalo Bill at the age of 19.
See also