Clive Dickinson - The Lost Diary of Annie Oakley’s Wild West Stagehand

Illustrated by George Hollingworth

Cover

Title Page THE LOST DIARY OF ANNIE OAKLEY’S WILD WEST STAGEHAND LASSOED BY CLIVE DICKINSON Illustrated by George Hollingworth

Message to Readers MESSAGE TO READERS What do you do when you unexpectedly find a previously unknown document about a famous person? Sell it to a newspaper? Sell it to a television company? Put it back where you found it? Tear it up as bedding for your gerbils? This was exactly the difficulty faced by Clive Dickinson during a visit to Germany. While he was unwrapping a cuckoo clock he had bought, he discovered what looked like a very thick exercise book lining the bottom of the box. Inside were pages and pages of writing, not in German, as he might have expected, but in English. To make sure he wasn’t going cuckoo himself, Mr Dickinson flicked through the pages and found dates from the 1880s, which suggested that the book was a kind of journal. All the way through, he spotted the name of Annie Oakley, who was one of the most famous American women in the world one hundred years ago. Before going public, Mr Dickinson asked for professional help. In exchange for return flights to Europe, all expenses paid, two experts on the American West, Professor Joe King of Larfinstock College and Dr Rusty Brayne of Imina State University, confirmed that he had made a unique find. In their experience, nothing quite like it had ever been discovered before. After careful study, lasting two weeks in an expensive hotel, they agreed that the book lining the box of the cuckoo clock was the personal diary of one Phil McCartridge. He seems to have worked as Annie Oakley’s stagehand during the years in which she became world famous for her amazing shooting act in the show called Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. Working closely with Annie Oakley, Phil McCartridge was able to record day-to-day details about her and her friends: the cowboys, Native American Indians, animal-handlers, stable-hands and riders, who helped recreate life in the Wild West for spectators on both sides of the Atlantic. Now this remarkable document can be published for the first time, bringing alive the thrills and skills, dangers and excitements which Buffalo Bill’s Wild West brought to millions of people in America and Europe a century and more ago.

24 April 1885 – Louisville, Kentucky

25 April 1885 – Louisville, Kentucky

26 April 1885 – On the Train

16 May 1885 – On the Train to Chicago

25 May 1885 – Chicago

12 June 1885 – Buffalo, New York State

30 July 1885 – Boston

2 August 1885 – Boston

2 September 1885 – London

11 October 1885 – St Louis, Missouri

29 May 1886 – On the Train to Washington D.G.

26 June 1886 – New York

4 July 1886 – New York

24 July 1886 – New York

24 September 1886 – New York

Thanksgiving, 1886 – New York

4 December 1886 – New York

12 December 1886 – New York

1 April 1887 – At Sea

18 April 1887 – London, England

28 April 1887 – London

6 May 1887 – London

12 May 1887 – London

11 June 1887 – London

20 June 1887 – Windsor Castle, England

22 June 1887 – London

20 July 1887 – London

31 August 1887 – London

31 October 1887 – London (For the Last Time this Year)

20 December 1887 – New York

22 February 1888 – Easton, Pennsylvania

2 April 1888 – Philadelphia

24 May 1888 – Philadelphia

2 July 1888 – Gloucester Beach, New Jersey

8 August 1888 – Troy, New York

31 December 1888 – Philadelphia

31 January 1889 – Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

12 May 1889 – Paris, France

15 May 1889 – Paris

10 June 1889 – Paris

22 July 1889 – Paris

4 March 1890 – Rome, Italy

23 April 1890 – Munich, Germany

23 August 1890 – Berlin, Germany

23 September 1890 – On the Train in Germany (Don’t Rightly Know Where)

31 January 1891 – Banfelt, Alsace (Germany)

The Rest of the Story

Publisher’s Addendum

Other Works

Copyright

About the Publisher

What do you do when you unexpectedly find a previously unknown document about a famous person? Sell it to a newspaper? Sell it to a television company? Put it back where you found it? Tear it up as bedding for your gerbils?

This was exactly the difficulty faced by Clive Dickinson during a visit to Germany. While he was unwrapping a cuckoo clock he had bought, he discovered what looked like a very thick exercise book lining the bottom of the box. Inside were pages and pages of writing, not in German, as he might have expected, but in English.

To make sure he wasn’t going cuckoo himself, Mr Dickinson flicked through the pages and found dates from the 1880s, which suggested that the book was a kind of journal. All the way through, he spotted the name of Annie Oakley, who was one of the most famous American women in the world one hundred years ago.

Before going public, Mr Dickinson asked for professional help. In exchange for return flights to Europe, all expenses paid, two experts on the American West, Professor Joe King of Larfinstock College and Dr Rusty Brayne of Imina State University, confirmed that he had made a unique find. In their experience, nothing quite like it had ever been discovered before.

After careful study, lasting two weeks in an expensive hotel, they agreed that the book lining the box of the cuckoo clock was the personal diary of one Phil McCartridge. He seems to have worked as Annie Oakley’s stagehand during the years in which she became world famous for her amazing shooting act in the show called Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

Working closely with Annie Oakley, Phil McCartridge was able to record day-to-day details about her and her friends: the cowboys, Native American Indians, animal-handlers, stable-hands and riders, who helped recreate life in the Wild West for spectators on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now this remarkable document can be published for the first time, bringing alive the thrills and skills, dangers and excitements which Buffalo Bill’s Wild West brought to millions of people in America and Europe a century and more ago.

Well, I’ll be…!

I thought I’d seen just about all there was to see about guns and shooting and the Wild West. But not after today. No, sir.

Colt, Remington, Lancaster, Winchester, Double Gloucester – there ain’t a gun this side of the Rocky Mountains that I don’t know. And there ain’t a champion sharp-shooter I ain’t seen – leastways, not till this afternoon.

Now, I may not be that quick at book learning, but I know a sure bet when I see one. I reckon I could be on to a good thing if I start writing down what goes on around here. I can see my name in print already on one of those fancy book covers and in the newspapers.

Things ain’t going to be the same – that’s for sure. And about time, too. Last winter was the worst this show has ever known. First the steamship carrying everything down the river ran into another steamship and sank. We lost animals, wagons and camp gear, not to mention my precious guns and ammunition. That meant the show opened late in New Orleans, which ain’t good for business, especially at Christmas.