Little Britches (outlaw)
| Jennie Stevens, or Little Britches | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1879 Barton County, Missouri, USA |
| Died | Unknown Unknown |
| Residence | Oklahoma Territory |
| Occupation | American outlaw |
| Spouse(s) |
Divorced from Benjamin Midkiff and Robert Stephens |
| Parent(s) | Daniel and Lucy Stevenson |
Divorced from Benjamin Midkiff and Robert Stephens
Little Britches (born Jennie Stevenson in 1879; date and place of death unknown) was an outlaw in the American Old West associated with Cattle Annie. Their exploits are fictionalized in the 1981 film Cattle Annie and Little Britches, directed by Lamont Johnson and starring Diane Lane as Little Britches.
Born Jennie Stevens in Barton County in southwestern Missouri, to a farm couple, Daniel and Lucy Stevenson. Her one known sister was Victoria Estella Stevenson. Apparently she dropped the "son" from her maiden name; her second husband was apparently named "Stephens", not "Stevens." For a time, therefore, she was Jennie Stevenson Stephens. The Stevenson family lived during part of the 1880s in Seneca in Newton County, also in southwestern Missouri on the eastern border of Oklahoma, then Indian Territory. The Stevensons then moved into the Creek Nation at Sinnett in Pawnee County in the northern Indian Territory. Little Britches followed stories of the Bill Doolin gang written by such dime novelists as Ned Buntline, like her friend Cattle Annie (born Anna Emmaline McDoulet).
Little Britches joined the Doolin gang but lost her horse and returned home to the stern rebuke of her father. She was determined nevertheless to pursue a life of crime, and she married a deaf-mute horse dealer, Benjamin Midkiff, in March 1895. They established housekeeping in a hotel in Perry in Noble County in northern Oklahoma. Midkiff found her unfaithful, however, and he returned the teenager to her father after the two had been together for only six weeks. Within a day of returning home, she began riding along the Arkansas River in search of outlaw adventure.
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