“Buffalo” Bill Cody was an adventurer. Westward expansion sent him wandering and the showman in his soul pushed him to fame, but in one of the few quiet moments in his life, a woman from Arnold captured his heart.
Cody set the stage to become an icon of the wild West at a young age. He was born in 1846, and at the age of 11, he already was a “boy extra” with a freight carrier delivering messages from the front of a wagon train to the back as it traveled. By the time he was 14, he was engaged as a Pony Express rider. Beginning in 1863, he served as a scout in the Civil War with the Kansas Calvary, but shortly before the war was over, when he was 19 years old, he was given a desk job at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis County. It was a position that didn’t suit him very well, according to the account of Cody's romance with Louisa Frederici, told on the Arnold Historical Society’s website.
“His new duties became intolerable for him. They lacked the excitement and danger that made his life worthwhile,” the story says.
During the time he was stationed in St. Louis though, he ran into some excitement of a different sort. Early one morning, he happened on a very attractive woman who made his heart skip a beat. She had dark hair, large dark eyes and a beautiful figure. He hoped to talk to her, but in those days, men and women had to be properly introduced, according to the website.
Margaret Louisa Frederici was born on May 27, 1844, in northern Jefferson County on a farm near where Jeffco Boulevard and Frederitzi Lane is now located, just south of Church Road in Arnold.
Cody reportedly visited the family at that property in Arnold.
Louisa was the daughter of John Francis and Marguerita (Smith) Frederici. Sources say that John came with his parents Christopher and Anne Elizabeth (Hennisienne) Frederitzi (as it was spelled then) when they emigrated from France and settled on the Jefferson County property in the 1830s.
In 1865, Louisa was there, probably living somewhere near the barracks, and as fate would have it, one morning, May 1 to be exact, when Cody was near, her horse, perhaps spooked, broke its bridle rein and ran off with the young lady. Cody set out in pursuit, brought the horse to rein and Louisa into his circle.
They fell in love, but Cody, a poor soldier, decided to set off to earn enough money to support a wife. He hired on with a stage coach line, at $150 a month.
Louisa, however, in what was surely an omen, was filled with loneliness. She urged in a letter that Cody find another occupation. He wrote back to set their wedding date and to inform her he had quit his position.
They were married March 6, 1866, in her parents' home.
Cody worked at a hotel for a while, but shortly thereafter, a westward wind began calling him, and he contracted to provide buffalo for Kansas Pacific Railroad workers where he earned his name "Buffalo Bill." He was reported to have killed 4,282 buffalo in an 18-month period between 1867 and 1868. After that he was a Chief of Scouts for the Third Calvary in the American Indian Wars. Then, of course, there was Cody’s Wild West Show that made eight tours of Europe.
The marriage road was a little rocky. Cody filed for divorce from Louisa twice. The first was withdrawn on the death of their daughter, Orra, in 1883. They had four children and lost two of them in childhood. The second divorce went to trial in 1905. Louisa won the case and the divorce was denied, according to the William Cody Archive.
They reconciled about 1910 and Louisa was said to accompany Cody in his travels until his death in 1917. He was buried on Lookout Mountain in Golden, Colo. Louisa moved to Wyoming to the town that bore her husband’s name. She died in 1921 and was buried there.
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