Female Outlaw Pearl Hart By: Julie Lence

Pearl Hart was born in 1871 in Canada, with the birth name of Pearl Taylor. One of several children, and her parents of French descent, she was raised in a middle class home and sent to boarding school when she was 16. While at school, she met smooth talker Frank Hart, who filled her head with romantic tales of an exciting life in the wild west. In reality, he was nothing more than an abusive drunk, but Pearl fell in love with him and married him. The two left Canada and eventually landed in Chicago.

Women's Bldg at the Fair, Pinterest

Chicago was a changing point for Pearl. She attended the 1893 World’s Fair, featuring a Women’s Pavilion. A large array of females spoke on the Women’s Suffrage topic and Pearl took to heart that she could be more than just a wife, as her upbringing taught her. She also attended a Wild West show featuring Annie Oakley. Pearl was in awe of Annie’s shooting skills, and accompanied with the what she learned at the fair, she got up the gumption and left her abusive, unable-to-hold-a-job husband. She landed in Trinidad, Colorado, but soon found out she was pregnant and went back to Canada. After giving birth, she realized the lure of the west still beckoned and lit out for the states, leaving her son with her parents.

Pearl met up with her husband again and took him back on his promise that he was a changed man and capable of holding a job. For a while he held a maintained the positions of bartender and manager at a hotel, but all too soon, he and Pearl began partying, with Pearl learning to drink and smoke and use drugs. Problems arose between them again, and Frank left shortly after she gave birth to their daughter and joined Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, stating home life wasn’t for him. Pearl traveled back to Canada again and left her second child with her parents.

Courtesy of American Cowboy 

She found her way to Arizona and worked the mining camps as a cook, taking up drinking and opium use and not finding the romance and excitement of the west she longed for. Rumors suggested she tried to commit suicide several times, but was always saved by the miners, one of whom she formed a partnership with. Joe Boot was from German descent and he and Pearl began working their own claim when Pearl received a letter that her mother was gravely ill and needed money for the doctor’s bills. To acquire the money, Pearl and Joe thought to rob a train but decided to rob a stagecoach instead. Pearl cut her hair, dressed in Joe’s clothes, and together, they held up a stage. They came away with over $400 and the guard’s revolver and took off on their horses. But not knowing the land, they rode for two days then made camp and fell asleep, and woke to a posse surrounding them.

Courtesy of Pinterest

In Jail, Pearl became an instant celebrity. A lady bandit was rare. Remembering everything she learned from the Women’s Suffragette talks in Chicago, she began spouting she wouldn’t be tried in a court of law under rules men made and not women. Signing autographs and posing for pictures from her cell, the press loved her, and so did civilians. Ed Hogan was so smitten with her, he helped break her out of jail. She was found and brought back, and eventually went to trail. The jury found her innocent, especially after her defense lawyer brought into play she’d never been in trouble in the past and the only reason she robbed the stage was because of her mother’s health. The judge was furious with the decision and tried her on charges of stealing the guard’s gun and unlawfully carrying of a weapon. She was found guilty and sentenced to 5 years in Yuma. Joe received a 30 year sentence to Yuma.

Pearl became an even bigger celebrity and legend while in Yuma, earning the nickname Lady Bandit. The warden liked her and gave her a larger cell, and she again posed for pictures and signed autographs. She was released after serving 18 months and moved to Kansas City. Her sister wrote a production based on Pearl’s ‘Lady Bandit’ persona of which Pearl was to star in, but it never really caught on and Pearl disappeared from the public eye. A few years later, she was arrested for purchasing a stolen can of food. After that, she disappeared again and surfaced in 1924 at the Arizona courthouse she was tried in. She remarked to the attendant that nothing had changed since her last visit. He asked who she was and she replied, Pearl Hart, the lady bandit.

Rumors have abounded as to what happened to Pearl after this. Some say she died in Kansas City after operating a cigar shop. Others hint she lived in San Francisco until her death in 1952. A third suggests she married a rancher in Arizona and died under the name Pearl Bywater in 1956. She is wrongly credited with being the last person to rob a stage. The last stagecoach robbery was in 1916 in Jarbridge, Nevada. She is also not the only woman to ever rob a stage. Jane Kirkham was killed robbing a stage between Leadville and Buena Vista, Colorado in March 1879.

Such and interesting woman, and such a hard life Pearl led. 

Legendary Female Gambler Kitty Leroy

The thrill of the wild west didn’t just belong to the men. There were plenty of women who were as skilled in cards and guns as Bat Masterson and Doc Holiday. One such female who thrived on the edge of danger, and died young, was Kitty Leroy.

Kitty was born in Michigan in 1850. She began dancing at the young age of ten and by 14 was a professional in the dance halls and saloons. During this time, dancing wasn’t her only passion. She learned to handle knives and guns, becoming more proficient than most men. Her first husband, whom she married at the age of 15, was the only man in their town willing to let her shoot an apple off his head. But Kitty grew restless with small town life and longed for bigger and better things. Her husband didn’t share her desires, so she left him and headed west in search of fortune.     

Game of Faro

Kitty landed in Dallas, Texas and continued with her dancing career, but soon gave it up for dealing Faro. She became an accomplished gambler and continued mastering her skills with guns and knives. It was during this time she took to dressing in men’s clothes and married her 2^nd husband at the age of 20. They moved to California in the hopes of opening a saloon, but Kitty left him for husband number three. This marriage was extremely short. Legend dictates she challenged him to a fight but he refused to fight a woman. She donned her man’s clothes and challenged him a second time. Again, he refused so she shot him. When he didn’t die instantly, she sent for a preacher and married him while he lay on the ground. He died a few days after.

Deadwood

Kitty left California and made her way to Deadwood in 1876, traveling in a wagon party with Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane. Once in Deadwood, she found work as a prostitute in Mollie Johnson’s brothel. Shortly after gaining employment with Mollie, she opened the Mint Gambling Saloon and married her 4th husband, a German prospector who struck gold. His money dried up fast and so did her interest with him. Arguing became second nature for them until the night she hit him over the head with a bottle and tossed him out, effectively ending their marriage.  

Alone again, Kitty continued managing her saloon and her girls, earning a good profit. On June 11, 1877, she married for the last time to prospector and gambler Samuel R. Curley. Kitty’s marriage to Samuel was also steeped in violence. He was extremely jealous of her, and with reason. She continued with her promiscuous ways, including having an affair with her ex-husband and one with Wild Bill, or so rumor suggests. Samuel shot and killed Kitty on the night of December 6, 1877 then killed himself. They were laid to rest together the next day.

   Somewhere in Kitty’s colorful 28 years, she had a daughter. At the time of her death, Deadwood newspapers printed her estate was left to her daughter, Kitty Donally. 

Love in Days Gone By

I love writing historical romance, and one of the most fascinating and enjoyable aspects of that career is the research involved to bring characters to life. It's quite an understatement, of course, to say that life in the past was much different from today, yet in many ways, human nature hasn't changed all that much. Women then, as now, have wanted love and happiness, and have appreciated the values of home and family.

In The Wrong Woman, I wrote the following. In this little snippet from the story, Abigail and a friend begin by discussing a man...and end up contemplating what it means to be a woman:

~ ~ ~

“Let’s put our heads together, shall we? Maybe we can figure out why Will is acting so peculiar.”

Abigail pulled up a chair. “He’s a man, that’s why.”

“Men are always joking about their inability to understand women, but it works both ways, don’t you think?” asked Julia. “I mean, men are probably much more of a puzzlement than any woman could ever be. Our wants are so simple, really. We want to be loved and respected. We want to make a good marriage, raise a family of well-mannered children, and grow comfortably old with the man we love. What’s so difficult to understand in that?” The question was rhetorical. It required no response.

What an accurate observation, thought Abigail as she sipped her tea. In a few simple, straight-forward sentences, Julia had neatly summed up the precise nature of being a woman.

Love and marriage.

Home and family.

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Fortunately, women had many helpful resources to which they could turn for practical advice and down-to-earth instructions on how to achieve those cherished goals.  One popular reference was Married Love, also known as Love in Marriage, written by Dr. Maria Carmichael Stopes. 

I've browsed around a bit and have come up with some very interesting bits of advice from Dr. Stopes.

Marriage and Toiletry

Now, it may enchant a man once -- perhaps even twice -- or at long intervals -- to watch his goddess screw her hair up into a tight and unbecoming knot and soap her ears. But it is inherently too unlovely a proceeding to retain indefinite enchantment.

To see a beautiful woman floating in the deep, clear water of her bath -- that may enchant for ever, for it is so lovely, but the unbeautiful trivialities essential to the daily toilet tend only to blur the picture and to dull the interest and attention that should be bestowed on the body of the loved one.

Pet Him

Men are, at heart, eternally children, and such tender petting as comforts children warms and sweetens a grown man's life. The "good night" should be a time of delightful forgetting of the outward scars of the years, and a warm, tender, perhaps playful exchange of confidence.

Be Always Escaping

Man is still essentially the hunter, the one who experiences the desires and thrills of the chase, and dreams ever of coming unawares upon Diana in the woodlands. I think that, in the interests of husbands, an important piece of advice to wives is: Be always escaping.

Ensure that you allow your husband to come upon you only when there is delight in the meeting. 

Whenever the finances allow, the husband and wife should have separate bedrooms, failing that, they should have a curtain which can at will be drawn so as to divide the room they share.

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Yes, life was different indeed in days gone by. Love, too, was different in some respects, yet very much the same in others. I believe we can learn from the past, and I hope to create a home for my family that reflects many of the traditional, "old-fashioned" values which were once taught as part of what it meant to be a woman.

Finding little gems of wisdom through my research always brings a smile to my heart, and I'll leave you now with this sage advice for  loving wives and their husbands:

Never speak loudly to one another, unless the house is on fire.

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Until next month...may your lives be blessed with love!

Christina