Her grave at Spring Grove Cemetery offers no clues about her second husband, “Wild Bill” Hickok. Nor does Agnes Lake Thatcher’s grave reflect her first marriage or her own fame as a circus performer and circus owner.

In their 2009 biography of this remarkable woman, Linda A. Fisher and Carrie Bowers point out a painful irony: Throughout her life, Agnes Lake Thatcher Hickok bathed in the applause of overflowing crowds. In death, she plays to an empty house. Her grave is unmarked.

Agnes, as any good circus performer of the 1800s would, told so many versions of her biography that it is difficult to track truth from mythology. Fisher and Bowers trace her birth to 1826 in the German town of Damme. Her parents were Anna and Frederick Polschneider. When she was a young girl, Agnes’ mother died and her father brought the family to the United States where, for unknown reasons, they changed their surname to Messman. After a few years in rural Ohio, the Messmans (sometimes spelled Mersman) moved to Cincinnati.

The circus came to town when Agnes was a young lady. Most accounts put her age at 16, but she was more likely 21. Agnes was smitten by one of the clowns, 25-year-old Billy Lake.

Clowns back then were less like the slapstick buffoons of today, and more like stand-up comedians who also warbled “jolly songs.” By all accounts, Billy, whose real name was William Lake Thatcher, was quite handsome. He was equally entranced by young Agnes, so they eloped. Unless you were a performer, life on the road was pretty boring, Agnes discovered. According to the Jersey City Journal [23 August 1907], she found a role:

“The young bride got tired of doing nothing on these journeys, and under her husband’s directions she practiced for a slack wire performance and soon became so expert at it that she was known throughout the circus world as the greatest in her line.”

Unlike the tight rope, the slack wire features a loose and sagging line, requiring great balancing skill because the wire or rope can move a great deal. Agnes also became an equestrian of considerable skill, according to J.W. Buel in his 1881 book, “Heroes of the Plains”:

“After joining her husband’s circus she became the greatest slack-wire performer in America, and was the first person to execute the daring feat of trundling a wheelbarrow, on a small wire, over the centre-pole of a circus tent. But her most distinguished performances were in equestrian acts, and especially as a manege rider. In this she never had an equal until her own daughter, Emma, arose to a position of prominence when the mother had retired from the arena.”

It was common for circuses at the time to claim that they had performed before “the crowned heads of Europe.” Agnes actually did just that, performing the drama “Mazeppa” in Prussia (and in German), to an audience including the Emperor Wilhelm I. “Mazeppa” was considered very risqué and included a nude scene on horseback – the “nudity” being lightly obscured by flesh-colored tights.

Agnes showed a fine head for business as well and managed the financial side of the Lake Circus along with James Anthony Bailey, who later joined forces with P.T. Barnum to create the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Running the business became essential one day in 1869 when William Lake was murdered under his own big top.

The Lake Circus was playing Granby, Missouri, when the ushers accosted a local troublemaker named John Killian, who had sneaked into the tent without paying. Lake physically tossed Killian out of the tent. Killian returned, bought a ticket to get back in, located Lake and shot him through the heart at point-blank range. His widow purchased several lots in Spring Grove Cemetery and buried William under a large pink granite obelisk.

Agnes kept the Lake Circus together for the next five years. In 1871, the show was due in Abilene, Kansas, where the town fathers wanted to charge her $50 for a performing license. This did not sit well with the town marshal, a man named James Butler Hickok, better known as “Wild Bill.” Marshal Hickok announced that the show would go on without a license fee and anyone who objected could deal with him personally. The town council backed down. Agnes expressed her thanks and, according to J.W. Buel, Hickok told her his support had been motivated by romance. He proposed right away and told Mrs. Lake he was attracted by her business acumen:

“Well, now, [your circus] is fine enough, but do you know the greatest curiosity about this canvas is yourself; I never saw a woman before that could run anything, except with a broom handle, and to find one managing a big circus like this is a bigger sight than California Joe when he was tackled by a panther down in the Wachitas.”

Although Mrs. Lake reciprocated Hickok’s feelings (many authors testified to Wild Bill’s “manly beauty”), she suggested that they get to know one another before they formally proposed. And so they wrote heart-felt letters to each other for five years until they found themselves in Cheyenne, Wyoming on 5 March 1876. Agnes accepted James’ proposal (she never called him Bill, only James) and they were married that day. He was 39 years old. She was 49.

Hickok was in Cheyenne assembling a party to go prospecting for gold in the Black Hills. Although he accompanied his new bride on a honeymoon in Cincinnati to meet her folks, he was anxious to get back to gold country, so his stay in the Queen City was just a bit over two weeks. He then headed west, to Deadwood, Dakota Territory, where he wrote to Agnes on July 17:

“I know my Agnes and only live to love her. Never mind, Pet, we will have a home yet, then we will be so happy. I am almost sure I will do well here.”

It was not to be.

Hickok was at cards in a Deadwood saloon on 2 August 1876 when a man named Jack McCall shot him in the head from behind. Hickok died instantly.

Agnes made the trek out to Deadwood to see that her James was properly buried. She spent the rest of her long life living with her daughter, Emma, and her son-in-law Gil Robinson of the Robinson Circus family. Agnes died just shy of her 81st birthday in Jersey City, New Jersey.