Many of the stories which have been told about Annie Oakley simply are not true. Some were the products of the creative imaginations of the promoters of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. In more recent times, these ‘enhancements’ were the results of writers of popular fiction and television and motion picture screenwriters. In most cases, the true stories about Annie are better than the fictitious ones. Annie’s father, Jacob, fought in the War of 1812. His military records in the National Archives spell his last name Mosey.
Her mother, Susan, named her Phoebe Ann, but her sisters preferred to call her Annie. In the Federal Census of 1860, the family name was spelled Maury. In the 1870 Census, Annie is listed as Ann Mosey. Annie, herself, promoted the Mo zee spelling, but brother John and sister Hula changed their names to Moses before their dual wedding ceremony in 1884. The professional name Oakley was assumed in 1882, when Annie began to perform with Frank Butler; it was not a family name.
An important part of Annie’s professional image was her youthful look of vigor and vitality. In 1886, Lillian Frances Smith joined the Wild West show. Lillian was 15 and Annie was 26. Lillian was bragging around the members of the Wild West troup that Annie Oakley was done for, now that she had joined the show. Lillian was a threat to Annie’s image and Annie responded by lying about her age.
The truth is that Annie was born August 13, 1860. At that time her family lived in a cabin less than 2 miles northwest of Woodland, now Willow dell, in Darke County, Ohio.
The Essay on Wild West
In the beginning moving West was the majority of the barriers and obstructions that the setters had to face. Indian attacks, blizzards, tornadoes, flash floods and just being ill prepared among and numerous other hard ships took many settlers lives and were tough to over come. The journey was across a uniform, dusty, wind-swept, treeless nothingness. The temperatures would very a lot between 110 ...
