It was none other than Sitting Bull who bestowed the nickname “Little Sure Shot” on American sharpshooter Annie Oakley, who features prominently in the American Sale on March 18. Several items personally owned by Oakley will be offered, including a French carriage clock that was engraved with her name and gifted to her for her birthday during the American Exposition in London 1887. An Oakley biography references the clock as being one of dozens of gifts she received at the event from members of European royalty, and according to family history, it was with her during the 1901 train disaster that left her badly injured.
Other Oakley items include 16 books owned, and, in some cases, signed, by Oakley. One of them is inscribed to her husband by the author, bandleader John Philip Sousa. Also included is a 1926 personal check made out to her niece and signed with her married name “Annie Oakley Butler.” All of the Annie Oakley items to be auctioned come from a direct descendent of Oakley’s half-sister Emeline Patterson.