Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter and folk heroine who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

Oakley developed hunting skills as a child in order to provide for her impoverished family in western Ohio. At age 15, she won a shooting contest against an experienced marksman, Frank E. Butler, whom she married in 1876. The pair joined Buffalo Bill in 1885, performing in Europe before royalty and other heads of state. Audiences were astounded to see her shooting out a cigar from her husband's hand or splitting a playing-card edge-on at 30 paces. She earned more than anyone else in the troupe except Buffalo Bill himself.

After a bad rail accident in 1901, she engaged in a less taxing routine, touring in a play about her career. She also instructed women in marksmanship, believing strongly in women's self-defense. Her stage acts were filmed for one of Thomas Edison's earliest Kinetoscopes in 1894. Since her death in 1926, her story has been adapted for stage musicals and films, including Annie Get Your Gun.

Early life

Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann "Annie" Mosey on August 13, 1860, in a log cabin less than two miles (3.2 km) northwest of Woodland, now Willowdell, in Darke County, Ohio, a rural county along the state line with Indiana. Her birthplace is about five miles (8 km) east of North Star. There is a stone-mounted plaque in the vicinity of the site, which was placed by the Annie Oakley Committee in 1981, 121 years after her birth.

Annie's parents were Quakers of English descent from Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania: Susan (née Wise), born 1830, and Jacob Mosey, born 1799, married in 1848. They moved to a rented farm (later purchased with a mortgage) in Patterson Township, Darke County, Ohio, sometime around 1855.