Josephine Smith was born in 1863 to Quaker parents William and Alice Smith in Randolph County, Indiana. She was the fifth of six children.

Josephine’s father, who had fought in the War of 1812, was 61 years old at the time of Josephine’s birth and became invalid from hypothermia during a blizzard in late 1865 and died of pneumonia in early 1866 at age 66. Her mother remarried, had another daughter, and was widowed once again.

Because of poverty following her father’s death, Josephine did not regularly attend school as a child, although she did attend later in childhood and in adulthood. Josephine was always most at home in the woods.

One of Josephine’s strongest memories is of her mother Alice, who was of Irish descent, telling tell her and her siblings wonderful stories of the Faeries. These stories of the enchanted woodlands transported Josephine to another world and often seemed more real to her than her homeland.

There were times when Jo would come into the house from the woods and find her mother drawing runes in the ashes on the hearth. Her mother would quickly sweep the runes away but Jo often wondered what the strange shapes and runes were for. Josephine had no idea that her heritage was actually more complicated than her mother had told.

At the age of 10, she was “bound out” to a local family to help care for their infant son, on the false promise of fifty cents per week (equivalent to $10 in 2020) and an education. The couple had originally wanted someone who could pump water, cook, and who was bigger. She spent about two years in near-slavery with them, enduring mental and physical abuse. One time, the wife put Josephine out in the freezing cold without shoes, as a punishment because she had fallen asleep over some darning..

Around the spring of 1872, Josephine ran away from “the wolves” and came to live with a kinder family known as the Edingtons for 3 years, finally returning to her mother’s home again around the age of 15.

Josephine began trapping before the age of seven, and shooting and hunting by the age of eight, to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold the hunted game to locals in Greenville, who shipped it to hotels in Cincinnati and other cities. Josephine also sold the game to restaurants and hotels in northern Ohio. Her skills paid off the mortgage on her mother’s farm by the time Josephine was only 15.

At 15, she won a shooting contest against experienced marksman Frank E. Butler, whom she later married. The pair joined Buffalo Bill in 1885, performing in Europe before royalty and other heads of state. Audiences were astounded to see her shooting a cigar from her husband’s lips or splitting a playing card edge-on at 30 paces. She earned more than anyone except Buffalo Bill himself.

In 1888, Josephine was badly injured in a train accident. Her husband Frank was killed. Josephine recovered after temporary paralysis and five spinal operations. She held the rail company at fault. While recovering from her spinal injuries, she became addicted to Cocaine and was arrested in Chicago.

Shortly after Release, Josephine met the notorious outlaw News Carver who was visiting Chicago at the time. News was smitten with her though Josephine did not feel so much the same way. Nevertheless, She fell in with News and his scoundrel friends, making some bad choices along the way, and eventually followed all the way to Wyoming and the infamous gangs at Hole in the Wall.

Her continued hatred for the railroad motivated her to partake in anything related to a railway robbery and she participated more than once as a lookout and long gun.