St. Michaels Map and History

Annie Oakley: Adopted DelMarVan

by A.M. Foley

Among shoppers on Cambridge’s busy Race Street in 1920, the Butlers were easily overlooked: a middle-aged couple going about their business, the wife a diminutive silver-haired lady. Actually, aside from Queen Victoria, this small woman was the most famous in the world. The queen had come to see her. Victoria’s son, the Prince of Wales, invited the couple to shoot at “dear old Sandringham,” the 20,000-acre estate where he indulged his love of genteel blood sport.

“Annie Oakley,” Mrs. Frank Butler, enjoyed visiting royalty, but she never forgot her roots. Growing up, Phoebe Ann Mozee suffered grinding poverty. She was born in western Ohio in 1860, then known as “the wilds.” The Mozees were Quakers, subsistence farmers. At five, Annie lost her father, who left her mother with seven children, aged fifteen to two. Mother lost the farm, then lost her eldest, Mary, to tuberculosis. She sold their cow, Pink, to pay for Mary’s doctor and burial.

At nine, Annie went to the Edington family, supervisors of the county poorhouse. From there she was hired away, supposedly to help tend a baby, but her assigned chores grew and grew. One evening, when Annie dozed off over the mending basket, the wife struck her and locked her outside in the snow. Fearful upon hearing her husband returning, she brought Annie in by the fire. After two years of differing abuses by the couple Annie named “the wolves,” she escaped, reaching the train station hungry and shivering. A stranger, seeing the pre-teen child’s obvious distress, bought her food and a ticket

St. Michaels Map and History

© John Norton

On the broad Miles River, with its picturesque tree-lined streets and beautiful harbor, St. Michaels has been a haven for boats plying the Chesapeake and its inlets since the earliest days. Here, some of the handsomest models of the Bay craft, such as canoes, bugeyes, pungys and some famous Baltimore Clippers, were designed and built. The Church, named “St. Michael’s,” was the first building erected (about 1677) and around it clustered the town that took its name.

For a walking tour and more history of the St. Michaels area visit https://tidewatertimes.com/travel-tourism/st-michaels-maryland/.

home. She never knew his name but prayed for him daily.

In her unfinished memoir, Annie describes her worst fear materializing when the “he-wolf” appeared in her schoolroom: “I just screamed, ‘No.’ . . . He took me by the arm, twisting it until I almost fainted with pain, and dragged me through the door.” Forcing Annie onto his wagon, he sped away, but needed to pass the Edington house in his flight. . . .

“I planned to turn a back somersault and leap just as he reached the gate. But it wasn’t necessary. I saw a six foot two figure in the road, Frank Edington.” Feigning

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ignorance, Mr. Edington appeared to assume they were stopping for dinner and sent Annie in the house while he saw to the horses. Once safely upstairs, she said, “I told Auntie my whole story and I had Auntie unbutton my little dress and look at the scars on my back where the ‘Wolves’ struck me.

“Auntie took me downstairs. The Wolf arose and said, ‘Well, we must be going. We have a long way to go. Come, Annie!’” Mrs. Edington told him to go and be thankful he’d escaped her husband, “but this child remains right here.” Clenching his fists, the he-wolf said, “She ain’t yourn.” Just then, the muscular farm supervisor filled the doorway, saying, “Your team is ready.” The he-wolf left. Annie wrote, “That night I slept untroubled for the first time in long months.”

Fearful of predictably going to her mother’s, she stayed with the Edingtons, learning to sew for the orphans. She saved her seamstress wages, resolving to take control of her own life. From earliest childhood, she and her brother had trailed the woods together. When she could heft their father’s muzzle-loader, her first shot’s recoil broke her nose, but her innate skill quickly became apparent. When she left the Edingtons, a teen wise beyond her years, she resumed the work she loved: providing for her family’s table.

She aimed for head-shots on

pheasants and quail. Such buckshot-free game led to market gunning, eventually repaying her mother’s mortgage. In her midteens, the pretty little Quaker girl was put forward by one of her merchant customers in a skeetshooting competition against a professional, Frank Butler. She scored a perfect 25 against Butler’s 24 hits, winning the prize and her opponent’s heart. A year later, they married.

With Frank’s help, Annie transformed herself from a solitary backwoods hunter into a captivating stage presence. She rode into Frank Butler

Annie Oakley was Chief Sitting Bull’s adopted daughter. 102