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Daniel Boone, America’s most famous pioneer hero, had set off into a hostile world without roads, toting only a flintlock musket and a knife; the region was so wild he reportedly killed over ten thousand bears while he surveyed and settled vast virgin wildernesses of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Missouri. In 1820, at the age of eighty-five, Boone went on his final hunting trip near his home in St. Charles, Missouri, caught pneumonia, and died. Although he spent his life in the woods and claimed a lot of property for himself and his family, he lost it all to the slick dealings of investors using issues of unclear titles and creditors liens to strip him of all but his name. His funeral was held in his son’s barn instead of the house; hundreds showed up unexpectedly to pay their respects. Many remember a TV show that portrayed Daniel Boone wearing a coonskin cap. He actually wore a felt-brim hat in the Quaker style now seen on boxes of oatmeal. The TV theme song: “Daniel Boone was a man. Yes a big man. With an eye like an eagle as tall as a mountain was he,” was also a stretch. Boone was 5 feet 8 and weighed about 175 pounds. He did have a keen and active mind and stayed physically fit, a fact that kept him alive long after what is currently considered retirement age.

To learn more about how legends such as Daniel Boone died read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of some of the West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Outlaws.

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The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.

Women Medical Students – 1893

“No Women Need Apply.”  These four discouraging words of admonition often greeted female physicians looking for jobs in the frontier-era West.  Despite the dire need for medical help, it seemed most trappers, miners, and emigrants would rather suffer and die than be treated by a female doctor.  Nevertheless dozens of highly trained women headed West, where they endured hardship and prejudice as they set broken limbs, performed operations, and delivered generations of babies-and solidified a place for women in the medical field.

In the beginning, western communities where Doctor Mary Canaga Rowland practiced were reluctant to accept her skills. After hanging her shingle out in Lebanon, Oregon, she overheard people talking as they passed by her sign. “Doctor Mary Canaga Rowland, a woman doctor, well, well, well…” The first patient she saw in Oregon in 1909, was not opposed to women doctors. In fact he sought her out for just that reason: “He was a little boy of ten or eleven. He came to me about half past eleven one night and woke me up to take care of his hurt finger. He was crying and I asked him how he happened to come to me and he said, “Cause I know’d you’re a woman and you’d be careful…”

To learn more about Mary Canaga Rowland and other lady healers on the frontier read The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.

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The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West

Frantic pounding on the front door of Nellie Pooler Chapman’s home forced the petite woman out of a deep sleep, off of her bed, and onto her feet. She quickly lit a nearby candle, threw on her robe, and hurried to answer the desperate person knocking and calling out for help.

As soon as Nellie opened the door, a scruffy miner pushed his way inside. His left hand was holding his left cheek and tears were streaming down his face. “I’ve got to see the doc,” he pleaded. Nellie left the door standing open as she brushed her mussed hair from her face. “The doctor isn’t here,” she informed the man. “He’s in Nevada looking for silver.” The miner groaned in pain and cried even harder. “You’ve got to help me,” he insisted. “I’ve got a bad tooth and it’s killing me.” Nellie stared back wide-eyed at the suffering man. “I’m not a dentist,” she told him. “I don’t know how to removed a bad tooth.”

The man drew in a quick breath and winched. He was in agony. “You’ve watched him work, though,” he reminded her. “You know what to do. Please,” he begged. Nellie thought about it for a moment, then ushered the tormented patient into the dental office in the back of the house. “I’ll try,” she told him.

Nellie’s introduction into the field of dentistry was dramatic, but it suited her. She went on to become the first licensed dentist in the Old West.

To learn more about Nellie Pooler Chapman and other lady healers on the frontier read The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.

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The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West

Woman Doctor demonstrates operation to class – 1883

The rough-and-tumble town of Deadwood, South Dakota was home to a variety of notorious western characters in the mid-1800s. Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Calamity Jane were just a few of the infamous names associated with the gold-mining camp. These three legends of the West were at one time patients of the first woman doctor in the area, Doctor Flora Hayward Stanford. Doctor Stanford opened a practice in Deadwood in 1888 and began seeing to the healthcare needs of hundreds of prospectors, prostitutes, business owners, and their families. She entered the medical profession late in her life, receiving her degree from Boston University of Medicine in 1878, at the age of forty.

To learn more about lady healers on the frontier read

The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West.

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The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West

Women Medical Students – 1902

In the beginning, the prejudice female doctors encountered was displayed by women as well as men. Many women felt they would be better served by male doctors, who were taken seriously as professionals. A female doctor, by contrast, was considered merely a healer – unable to determine what was really wrong with a patient.

In hopes of dispelling that stereotype, women touted their expertise in a variety of publications. The following ad, for instance, appeared in a February 24, 1882, San Francisco newspaper: To the Ladies – Madame Costello, Female Physician, still continues to treat, with astonishing success, all diseases peculiar to females. Madame C can be consulted at her residence, 34 Lispenard Street.

To learn more about lady healers on the frontier read

The Doctor Wore Petticoats: Women Physicians of the Old West