Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm to bling a choker boarding and I'm Scared Dowdy,
Speaker 1: and we are picking up here again with the story
Speaker 1: of Bell Star, one of the most notorious female outlaws
Speaker 1: of the Old West, who has been called the bandit
Speaker 1: Queen and the female Jesse James. And she's been credited
Speaker 1: with robbing stage coaches, holding up branchers while dressed as
Speaker 1: a man, and leading her own band of outlaws. But
Speaker 1: as we discussed in the last episode, a lot of
Speaker 1: these stories about her may have just come from the
Speaker 1: public's desire for intrigue filled adventure tales of the Wild West. Regardless,
Speaker 1: though these stories bled into a number of biographies and
Speaker 1: so called official accounts of her life, it became true
Speaker 1: almost but more recent accounts have contradicted a lot of
Speaker 1: these stories. For example, we mentioned in the last episode
Speaker 1: that some people have thought That's daughter Pearl was fathered
Speaker 1: by the famous outlaw Cole Younger, and even sources like
Speaker 1: Encyclopedia Britannica say that this is quote probable, But then
Speaker 1: other works like Margaret Rouse biography, Bell of the West,
Speaker 1: which have looked into letters and court records those sort
Speaker 1: of things, say that that's most likely not the case.
Speaker 1: So what we've been doing is recounting Bell's life and
Speaker 1: some of those better known stories and the differing takes
Speaker 1: on them, And what we're trying to do is look
Speaker 1: into where some of the wilder ones came from, maybe
Speaker 1: how they came about, And the hopes are that perhaps
Speaker 1: by understanding her character and seeing what primary sources can
Speaker 1: corroborate with some of these stories, you can at least
Speaker 1: get close to what her real story truly is. So
Speaker 1: we'll rehash part one a little bit. So far, we've
Speaker 1: talked about her childhood, her work as a spy during
Speaker 1: the Civil War, and her family's harboring of outlaws in
Speaker 1: Texas and that tumultuous marriage to the outlaw Jim Read.
Speaker 1: And what we've really seen from all of this is
Speaker 1: that even if Bell herself wasn't a criminal, she was
Speaker 1: always really spunky. She was an outspoken girl with a
Speaker 1: quick temper, and she associated very closely with a lot
Speaker 1: of outlaws. So already it's kind of easy to see
Speaker 1: how her personality would have lent itself quite nicely to
Speaker 1: this whole persona of the bandit queen. It makes sense.
Speaker 1: And when we left off in part one, it was
Speaker 1: August of eight seventy four, and we were getting another
Speaker 1: taste of that spunk nous. A man named John Morris
Speaker 1: had just killed Read and then asked Bell, who at
Speaker 1: this point was still going by her given name Myra Maybel,
Speaker 1: to come identified a body so that he could collect
Speaker 1: the bounty. So Myra Mabel shows up, sure enough, but
Speaker 1: she looks at Read's body and says that she's never
Speaker 1: seen him before, and then told Norris, and you'll remember
Speaker 1: this dramatic quote from the end, you will never get
Speaker 1: that bounty. So something was going on here, maybe some
Speaker 1: strange loyalty to Read or and us against out laws,
Speaker 1: against the law exactly. So it's unclear if the story
Speaker 1: is true, but either way, plenty of people could identify
Speaker 1: Read for Morris. So Morris got his share of the
Speaker 1: balanty after all, though not the full amount since he
Speaker 1: didn't bring in Read's full gang. After Reid's death, though
Speaker 1: Maira Maybel really did struggle for a while. Jim Steath
Speaker 1: had left her pretty much broke except for that land
Speaker 1: her father had given her, and it was hard for
Speaker 1: a woman in those days to make a living on
Speaker 1: her own too, and she had the kids to think about,
Speaker 1: so she rented her farmland and briefly tried to push
Speaker 1: Pearl into a stage career because she had seen other
Speaker 1: children become quite successful that way. A little girl performers
Speaker 1: in particular, were very popular in the frontier town, so
Speaker 1: Maira Maybel took Pearl to Dallas and rolled her in
Speaker 1: school and acting classes there, but Pearl ended up getting sick,
Speaker 1: and so the doctor recommended she avoid the stress of performing.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, though, Maira Maybel's father had passed away
Speaker 1: and her mother sold the farm and moved to Dallas
Speaker 1: with Eddie, so it really seemed like hard times for
Speaker 1: the family. According to Row's work, some Bellstar biographers paint
Speaker 1: the time in Dallas as a really wild time for her,
Speaker 1: when she spent all of her time guzzling whiskey and
Speaker 1: saloons and using her feminine wiles to scam money off
Speaker 1: of unsuspecting wealthy men. She also supposedly caused a lot
Speaker 1: of public disturbances, shooting off her guns in the street,
Speaker 1: much like she did when she was a kid, but
Speaker 1: Raol actually points out that local newspapers never once mentioned
Speaker 1: Myra Maybel in conjunction with events like these, even though
Speaker 1: they pretty much covered everything that was going on at
Speaker 1: the time and would even embellish stories to make them
Speaker 1: more comfortable. So it seems unlikely that this really happened
Speaker 1: since she's sort of conspicuously missing from these sorts of
Speaker 1: accounts well, and it definitely also seems like Myra Maybel
Speaker 1: was mostly focused on Pearl during this time in Dallas,
Speaker 1: because after it was clear the stage career wasn't gonna happen,
Speaker 1: she sold her farm and she set off on a
Speaker 1: tour of visits to old Carthage friends in Missouri and
Speaker 1: arkanhas and Kansas. And during this journey she ended up
Speaker 1: leaving Pearl for a time to ay with a longtime
Speaker 1: friend along the way. By eighteen seventy nine or so,
Speaker 1: she had gone to Joplin, Missouri, and that gambler Bruce
Speaker 1: Younger Cole Younger's cousin. She found him exciting and they
Speaker 1: started up a fling. Their relationship was actually pretty scandalous
Speaker 1: to not just because they were unmarried and because Bruce
Speaker 1: was considered kind of a good for nothing sort of guy,
Speaker 1: but also because they were staying at the same hotel,
Speaker 1: and some people spread rumors that they were even staying
Speaker 1: in the same room. The hotel owner, however, confirmed that
Speaker 1: Myra Maybel did in fact have a room of her own,
Speaker 1: and her mom and sometimes even Pearl would come and
Speaker 1: visit her there. Whatever the exact living situation was, though,
Speaker 1: she eventually got tired of it and decided to move
Speaker 1: into Indian Territory and visit her late husband's business associate,
Speaker 1: Tom Starr and Bruce Younger accompanied her there and, according
Speaker 1: to row must have told her at some point that
Speaker 1: he would marry her, or at least Myra Maybel expected
Speaker 1: this to happen, because records showed that she went ahead
Speaker 1: and changed Pearl's last name from Reid to Younger. But
Speaker 1: after a while, Bruce just got bored of Indian Territory
Speaker 1: and headed off for North Kansas, and according to Row's account,
Speaker 1: Myra Maybel was just furious at this because he'd essentially
Speaker 1: ruined her reputation. I mean, they had traveled there together
Speaker 1: by taking off without marrying her. So Rowl recounts a
Speaker 1: popular story of how she got back at him, saying
Speaker 1: that Myra Maybel followed him to Kansas on horseback, went
Speaker 1: to the courthouse and got a marriage license, and then
Speaker 1: she found a justice of the peace and tracked down
Speaker 1: Bruce holding a gun to his head. She told him
Speaker 1: she'd blow his brains out if he didn't marry her
Speaker 1: right away in front of twenty witnesses. So of course
Speaker 1: Bruce went along with it. It's a real shotgun wedding exactly.
Speaker 1: And after that she ordered a beer for everyone, or
Speaker 1: beer in general for everyone. I think she ordered a
Speaker 1: keg or something, and then just took off and stay
Speaker 1: for the party herself, just took off back to Indian Territory.
Speaker 1: So that sounds like kind of an outlandish story, the
Speaker 1: type of thing that would be more on the edge
Speaker 1: inside of Bell Star's life. But there really is record
Speaker 1: of the two of them getting married in Kansas on May,
Speaker 1: so there you go, could happen. She obviously wasn't too
Speaker 1: hung up on Bruce Younger though, because just three weeks
Speaker 1: later there's a record of Myra Maybell marrying someone else,
Speaker 1: and that's Sam Starr, a good looking twenty three year
Speaker 1: old three quarter Cherokee son of Tom Starr whom we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. She was probably thirty two at the time
Speaker 1: that she listed her age in the Cherokee Nation court
Speaker 1: records as twenty seven. She also apparently completely ignored the
Speaker 1: fact that she had just married Bruce Younger. Her last
Speaker 1: name was listed in the marriage records as read Still,
Speaker 1: and it was after she married Sam that she started
Speaker 1: going by the name Bell Star. So, because of Sam's
Speaker 1: Cherokee status, they could of course apply for a free
Speaker 1: parcel of land on Indian Territory, which you couldn't do
Speaker 1: as a white person unless you were married to a Cherokee.
Speaker 1: So they settled in an area bordering the Canadian River
Speaker 1: that was surrounded by clips that contained several caves, and
Speaker 1: it was, according to Rout, known as the Younger's Bend
Speaker 1: because the Youngers had gone there to strategize during the
Speaker 1: Civil War, although other sources suggest Tom Star named it
Speaker 1: that because he really admired their gang. That's kind of
Speaker 1: a strange hypothesis to me, just because his wife dated
Speaker 1: to two of the brothers. Yeah, although if you remember
Speaker 1: from the previous podcast, the whole Coal Younger thing was
Speaker 1: just a rumor, so he might not have been too upset,
Speaker 1: and maybe Fam didn't even know about that. Maybe he didn't.
Speaker 1: So the other thing about Younger's Bend was that it
Speaker 1: was also seventy miles from Fort Smith, Arkansas, which is
Speaker 1: the nearest US court, which becomes significant later on in
Speaker 1: the podcast. And they moved into a little cabin there
Speaker 1: and they set up this nice life for themselves. Sam
Speaker 1: tended to cattle and horses and grew corn and hunted
Speaker 1: game and really filled that responsible masculine role in Bell's
Speaker 1: life that Jim Reid never really did, if you remember,
Speaker 1: he was just more focused on his outlaw and chers
Speaker 1: and wasn't kept him on the run and wasn't really around.
Speaker 1: And so Sam and as Sam and Bell, they brought
Speaker 1: Pearl up to live with them. And even though Bell
Speaker 1: had acquired this idyllic sort of life, Bell didn't stay
Speaker 1: completely out of trouble. No, much like her parents home
Speaker 1: in Texas, Sam and Bell Younger's ben home became kind
Speaker 1: of a refuge almost for outlaws. Jesse James was one
Speaker 1: of the first to hide out with him. He stayed
Speaker 1: with him for a couple of weeks while there was
Speaker 1: a ten thousand dollar bounty on his head. James ended
Speaker 1: up dying not long after that after taking a gunshot
Speaker 1: to the back, and according to Rawle again, rumors of
Speaker 1: his stay at Younger's Ben got out after his death,
Speaker 1: and this just really added to Belle's reputation as an
Speaker 1: outlaw herself. After you entertained, Jesse James, I mean, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? But Bell didn't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: be thought of in that way. She didn't want to
Speaker 1: be connected to somebody like Jesse James, at least publicly.
Speaker 1: She later wrote, quote on the Canadian River, I hope
Speaker 1: to pass the remainder of my life in peace. For
Speaker 1: a short time, I lived very happily with my little
Speaker 1: girl and husband, but it became noised about that I
Speaker 1: was a woman of notoriety from Texas, and from that
Speaker 1: time on, my home and actions have been severely criticized.
Speaker 1: My home became famous as an outlaw ranch, long before
Speaker 1: I was visited by any of the boys who were
Speaker 1: friends of mine. Bell's own behavior didn't always reflect this
Speaker 1: desire for peace, though, even though it really sounds like
Speaker 1: that's what she wanted. In the spring of eighty two,
Speaker 1: for example, she got involved in kind of a shady
Speaker 1: situation involving horses. The exact details of that situation as
Speaker 1: you might imagine with the topic of this nature. They
Speaker 1: differ quite a bit depending on what source you're looking at.
Speaker 1: But basically, Bell and Sam had corralled some of their
Speaker 1: horses on a neighbor's land, and suddenly the neighbor realized
Speaker 1: that a couple of the horses they had belonged to
Speaker 1: other people who lived in the neighborhood, and he pointed
Speaker 1: that out to them. But Sam and Bell didn't listen
Speaker 1: and didn't really return the horses either. Didn't react to
Speaker 1: an innocent kind of way, like what a mistake. Exactly
Speaker 1: give these back or let me explain why these horses
Speaker 1: look exactly like these other people's horses. No, none of that.
Speaker 1: So by July one, eighty two, Bell and Sam were
Speaker 1: charged with horse stealing. Then on November seven, eighteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: they both appeared in district Court at Fort Smith and
Speaker 1: their trial was set for February or March of eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty three, and a judge we mentioned in the Bass
Speaker 1: Reeves podcast, the Hanging Judge, Isaac C. Parker, presided over
Speaker 1: their trial. He got his scary nickname, if you'll remember,
Speaker 1: from the tough sentences that he used to hand out.
Speaker 1: But he took it easy on Bell and Sam since
Speaker 1: it was their first conviction. So Sam was sentenced to
Speaker 1: twelve months and Bell to two six month terms in
Speaker 1: the House of Correction in Detroit, and Sam did mostly
Speaker 1: hard labor while he was locked up, but Bell really
Speaker 1: became a model prisoner. She helped tutor the other female
Speaker 1: inmates who were pursuing an education, since of course she
Speaker 1: was very well educated. According to Richard aren't It's article
Speaker 1: in wild West, which we mentioned in the previous podcast.
Speaker 1: She even charmed the warden into making her his quote assistant,
Speaker 1: so she did pretty well for herself well she was
Speaker 1: in prison, but both Sam and Bell ended up having
Speaker 1: their sentences shortened to nine months and they were released
Speaker 1: around Christmas eighty three. So after being convicted of something
Speaker 1: as serious as horse stealing, Bell really didn't want to
Speaker 1: get in trouble like that again, and she kind of
Speaker 1: made a promise to her daughter Pearl that she wasn't
Speaker 1: going to get into any trouble like that again. In fact,
Speaker 1: she sent Pearl a letter before serving her sentence that said,
Speaker 1: and she'll be away from you a few months, baby,
Speaker 1: and have only this consolation to offer you that never
Speaker 1: again will I be placed in such humiliating circumstances. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have to think she thinks a little bit of
Speaker 1: Pearl's father too, and how he was so absent from
Speaker 1: the family because he was always getting in trouble and
Speaker 1: didn't want to be another parent like that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it maybe also that she's thinking a little bit of
Speaker 1: her family name. I remember, remember she came from this
Speaker 1: well to do kind of southern family, and she maybe thinking, yes,
Speaker 1: I've been locked up now I want to change my ways.
Speaker 1: So when Belle got out of prison, she really did
Speaker 1: seem to do her best to keep this promise. Tom
Speaker 1: Starr had kept up Younger's Bend for them, and she
Speaker 1: and Sam took care of the spring planting, and they
Speaker 1: brought both kids, Pearl and Eddie up to live with them.
Speaker 1: Bell even planted a flower garden, and she was also
Speaker 1: a model neighbor. According to Ral, she was known for
Speaker 1: attempting to the sick in her area, even people she
Speaker 1: had had altercations with people she didn't really like that much.
Speaker 1: She would rush to their side if something was wrong
Speaker 1: and really help out wherever she could. She still had
Speaker 1: a restless wild side to her, though she would apparently
Speaker 1: take frequent trips to visit friends to satisfy that, and
Speaker 1: she couldn't connect with the other women who lived in
Speaker 1: their neighborhood. That was kind of one disconnect that she
Speaker 1: had with everyone around her because they weren't as educated
Speaker 1: as her. So when she would see one of the
Speaker 1: women coming to visit her and chat for a while,
Speaker 1: she would sometimes just, I guess, head out the back
Speaker 1: door with a book and hide somewhere until they had
Speaker 1: gone away. Well, and of course, she also still had
Speaker 1: a bit of a soft spot for outlaw She really
Speaker 1: admired them for the way that they lived life in
Speaker 1: their own terms, and they were always always welcome to
Speaker 1: visit in her home, so if she saw an outlaw coming,
Speaker 1: she wasn't heading out the back door with a book.
Speaker 1: But living like this, Bell managed to stay out of
Speaker 1: trouble for at least a year, but then trouble caught
Speaker 1: up with her again in the form of the outlawed
Speaker 1: John Middleton, and he was wanted for horse theft and
Speaker 1: murder and found his way to younger Spend and Bell
Speaker 1: had probably met him through her earlier travels, maybe in
Speaker 1: Arkansas even and Middleton ended up hiding out around Bell's
Speaker 1: property until about April eighty five, and then when the
Speaker 1: Stars Cabin was raided that spring, Middleton realized it was
Speaker 1: just too dangerous to stay there. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: start to get too much of a reputation as an
Speaker 1: outlaw side out, the law is going to come there too.
Speaker 1: So Bell came up with a pretty clever play end
Speaker 1: to get Middleton out of the area. She would take
Speaker 1: off on one of her trips to Arkansas. That was
Speaker 1: how the plan was going to be, taking Pearl along
Speaker 1: with her, and they traveled by covered wagon and Middleton
Speaker 1: would hide in the back of the wagon. Sam and
Speaker 1: Eddie were to travel along behind them for at least
Speaker 1: part of the journey, and then when the coast was clear,
Speaker 1: Pearl would lend Middleton her horse and he would take off.
Speaker 1: So everything went as planned at first, but then Middleton
Speaker 1: somehow managed to offend Pearl. They got in an argument
Speaker 1: and she would not loan him her horse, so Belle
Speaker 1: at the last minute had to track down another horse
Speaker 1: for him and ended up buying the sorry old mare
Speaker 1: that was blind in one eye. Not a good getaway horse. No, So,
Speaker 1: as you would imagine, Middleton is not happy about this
Speaker 1: at all, But he took the horse and fled anyway.
Speaker 1: And that horse, covered in mud and still wearing pearl saddle.
Speaker 1: Apparently she wouldn't loan in the horse, but she would
Speaker 1: loan in her saddle was still It was spotted a
Speaker 1: few days later without the writer. After a search, Middleton's
Speaker 1: body was found. He drowned trying to cross swollen river
Speaker 1: on the horse. Authorities also discovered something that would mean
Speaker 1: even more trouble for Bell. The person who had sold
Speaker 1: her that horse, that sorry old mayor, was not the owner.
Speaker 1: It was a stolen horse, stolen one eyed horse. So
Speaker 1: Belle was charged with larceny and a warrant was issued
Speaker 1: for her rest in January. She ended up turning herself
Speaker 1: in at Fort Smith and her trial was set for September.
Speaker 1: And these events really just stoked the rumors surrounding Bell.
Speaker 1: According to Rouse book, newspapers had a field day with
Speaker 1: the situation, and we're coming up with all kinds of
Speaker 1: theories about her, including pretty delicious ones that she had
Speaker 1: been Middleton's mistress and that she ran a gang of
Speaker 1: cattle thieves. But in the meantime, Sam who seemed so
Speaker 1: domestic a little earlier in the episode wasn't really helping
Speaker 1: matters very much. She had already been implicated in the
Speaker 1: hold up of a U. S Mail hack, and then
Speaker 1: in February he was accused of being one of three
Speaker 1: men who robbed several farm settlements. So again a witness
Speaker 1: identified another one of the three, the three who robbed
Speaker 1: these farm settlements as a woman dressed as a man,
Speaker 1: specifically as Bell Starts. So Bell suddenly had some heat
Speaker 1: on her. Yeah, she's wanted, her husband's wanted. Sam managed
Speaker 1: to evade the authorities for a while. I mean they
Speaker 1: were in Younger's Bend, but remember they have these caves,
Speaker 1: those caves all around them to hide in, so he
Speaker 1: somehow manages to get away every time they come around
Speaker 1: looking for them. But Bell was arrested for the crime
Speaker 1: in mid May, and it's while she was in Fort
Speaker 1: Smith entering her not guilty ply for this crime that
Speaker 1: she kicked off another legend about herself. She had her
Speaker 1: photo taken that May with a murderer called Blue Duck.
Speaker 1: According to both Row's work and Arnot's article, this is
Speaker 1: really the only time she ever met Blue Duck, but
Speaker 1: the fact that they're in this photo together gave biographers
Speaker 1: an excuse to link her to him, suggesting that she
Speaker 1: may have been his mistress, and that she even retained
Speaker 1: an attorney who helped him avoid the death sentence. And
Speaker 1: I couldn't help wondering here, since I end up mentioning
Speaker 1: Linesome Dove in so many of these Wild West episodes
Speaker 1: because things remind me of them. Uh, Blue Duck is is,
Speaker 1: of course the famous murderer and the kidnapper in Lonesome Dove.
Speaker 1: And I wondered a little bit if maybe this Blue
Speaker 1: Duck was some sort of inspiration for that character. I
Speaker 1: think that may be likely, and I think it's also
Speaker 1: easy to see how even though she didn't know this
Speaker 1: person and another again, it's an affiliation with an outlaw,
Speaker 1: of affiliation with a notorious character um even through just
Speaker 1: a picture that helped add to Bell's reputation, and an
Speaker 1: outlaw of a different sort, maybe than some of the
Speaker 1: earlier men she had been hanging out with, maybe a
Speaker 1: worse sort, worse, more disturbing, more psychotic kind of sort.
Speaker 1: Just a side note, there was another famous photo taken
Speaker 1: around this time, that of her wearing a riding costume
Speaker 1: sitting side saddle on a horse, and if you google
Speaker 1: Bell Star you may actually see this pretty interesting photo
Speaker 1: to look at. But Bell had her own legal matters
Speaker 1: to attend to, of course, and she had at this
Speaker 1: point been indicted for two crimes and had to stand
Speaker 1: trial for both over the next couple of months, but
Speaker 1: she wasn't convicted in either. Ultimately, that initial horse stuff
Speaker 1: that she went to prison for was the only thing
Speaker 1: that she ever served time for, but she had some
Speaker 1: pretty serious family matters to deal with at this point.
Speaker 1: She returned to Indian Territory and found Sam, still trying
Speaker 1: to avoid the authorities, had been shot and badly wounded,
Speaker 1: and she finally convinced him to turn himself in, thinking
Speaker 1: that it would just be safer if he did so.
Speaker 1: But before his trial date actually came around, Sam got
Speaker 1: into a confrontation with the same neighborhood initially gotten him
Speaker 1: in Bell in trouble for horse theft, and Sam and
Speaker 1: the neighbor ended up shooting each other dead December. So
Speaker 1: that was a big blow to Bell, not just because
Speaker 1: she lost her husband, but without Sam in the picture,
Speaker 1: she no longer had a legitimate claim to her land.
Speaker 1: But she really liked her land. She loved the home
Speaker 1: that they built there, and she really wanted to stay.
Speaker 1: So she had to think of a creative way of
Speaker 1: solving that problem, and she did just that, and the
Speaker 1: answer was marrying twenty four year old Bill July. You
Speaker 1: sometimes see his name as Jim July or Jim Starr.
Speaker 1: I think he went by different aliases or nicknames. And
Speaker 1: he was a Creek Indian who was an adopted son
Speaker 1: of Tom Star. That didn't solve all of Bell's problems, though,
Speaker 1: her kids were going through some stuff as well. Her
Speaker 1: son Eddie, who was almost seventeen when Bell remarried, didn't
Speaker 1: accept her new husband at all. I think that he
Speaker 1: had really connected with Sam. And when this new guy
Speaker 1: came into the picture, he was only a few years
Speaker 1: older than him, he just wasn't having it. And Pearl
Speaker 1: had been dating a young man that Bell didn't a
Speaker 1: proof of because his family wasn't wealthy. So that created
Speaker 1: kind of another issue in an issue in which Bell
Speaker 1: doesn't really come up looking that great well now, And
Speaker 1: and the deal with Pearl really got out of hand
Speaker 1: because when the boy asked for Pearl's hand in marriage,
Speaker 1: Bell turned him down and then sent Pearl away to
Speaker 1: visit friends, and then while Pearl was gone, she concocted
Speaker 1: a fake letter to the boy from Pearl saying that
Speaker 1: Pearl had married she Pearl had married somebody else and
Speaker 1: signed Pearl's name to it, so tricking this kid. He
Speaker 1: ended up being so hurt that he went off and
Speaker 1: married another girl. Learning about her former boyfriend's marriage really
Speaker 1: crushed Pearl, but eventually both she and this man learned
Speaker 1: what had happened, and they saw each other a few
Speaker 1: times secretly. Pearl ended up getting pregnant and leaving home
Speaker 1: to live with her Reed family because Bell was so
Speaker 1: angry she wanted her to give up that baby, because
Speaker 1: the whole point was that she wanted her to marry
Speaker 1: someone else. She wanted her to marry someone with money,
Speaker 1: someone who had a future. So I just think this
Speaker 1: is interesting because throughout Bell's life story, this seems to
Speaker 1: be one of her redeeming qualities is that she loves
Speaker 1: her kids, especially Pearl. It seems, you know, she's really
Speaker 1: a devoted a mother, but this story just makes her
Speaker 1: seem really controlling and kind of diabolical. Yeah, it got
Speaker 1: out of hand clearly, but trouble with Law kept on
Speaker 1: following them too, so Bell had more than just these
Speaker 1: family problems to worry about. She tried to avoid it,
Speaker 1: but in June of eight seven, Bill July was arrested
Speaker 1: and indicted for horse theft, and in July of her
Speaker 1: son Eddie was charged with the same thing. So it
Speaker 1: was everybody was everybody was an outlaw. Now they weren't
Speaker 1: just harboring them right. Meanwhile, Bell was renting out the
Speaker 1: land your Younger's ben to various farmers. She had entered
Speaker 1: into a rental agreement with Mr Edgar Watson, but then
Speaker 1: later found out through his wife that he was wanted
Speaker 1: for murder in Florida. And at this point she really
Speaker 1: was not interested in harboring random fugitives anymore, especially ones
Speaker 1: that weren't part of her family or her friends, because
Speaker 1: she didn't want to face arrest or trial herself, so
Speaker 1: she tried to back out of the steel with Watson,
Speaker 1: but since she had already accepted payment from him, he
Speaker 1: would not budge. So finally she sort of obliquely or
Speaker 1: maybe not so obliquely, threatened him, saying, quote, I don't
Speaker 1: suppose the United States officers would trouble you, but the
Speaker 1: Florida officers might and that really did it. Watson was
Speaker 1: furious and he did leave. He settled on another farm nearby,
Speaker 1: but he was very, very upset about this. And then
Speaker 1: on February two nine, Belle accompanied her husband part of
Speaker 1: the way to Fort Smith, where he was going to
Speaker 1: stand trial for those horse theft charges, and after doing
Speaker 1: a little bit of shopping, she headed back home the
Speaker 1: next day, stopping at a neighbor's place for a bit
Speaker 1: to eat and socialize along the way. After she left
Speaker 1: the neighbor's house, she headed back toward a younger spend
Speaker 1: on horseback, and when she turned onto the river lane
Speaker 1: that would take her back home, she was shot at
Speaker 1: least twice, causing her to fall from her horse. Neighbors
Speaker 1: discovered her and came to her side, but she died
Speaker 1: they're on the lane. Most people, of course, suspected Watson
Speaker 1: of being the one who shot Bell. He, as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: had that grudge against her, and the shooting happened right
Speaker 1: near the farm where he was living at the time.
Speaker 1: There were even tracks from the scene that led toward
Speaker 1: his cabin, but the trail ended before they got to
Speaker 1: the building, so they couldn't definitively prove it. According to
Speaker 1: Row the murder weapon later on even turned out to
Speaker 1: be one of his guns. But ultimately, even though Watson
Speaker 1: was jailed for the crime, he had his lawyer's help
Speaker 1: and was able to convince the judge that all of
Speaker 1: the evidence was completely circumstantial. There were no witnesses around,
Speaker 1: so there was nobody to prove otherwise. And there are
Speaker 1: a few other potential suspects to including July Bell had
Speaker 1: supposedly caught him having an affair with the Cherokee girl,
Speaker 1: and then Eddie and Pearl too, just because things had
Speaker 1: gotten so rough with with their whole situation. Yeah, Eddie
Speaker 1: and Pearl were both unhappy because of fights that she
Speaker 1: had had with both of them. Obviously, Pearl had the
Speaker 1: whole relationship situation and the baby that wasn't accepted into
Speaker 1: her family, but they were there for Bell. In the end.
Speaker 1: There was a funeral for her, to which the family
Speaker 1: and several outlaws came to pay their respects. I mean,
Speaker 1: even though she was a controversial figure, she had a
Speaker 1: lot of friends and a lot of people who came
Speaker 1: to her funeral. Later, Pearl had a stone wall erected
Speaker 1: around Belle's grave and there was a headstone that read,
Speaker 1: shed not for her the bitter tear, nor give the
Speaker 1: heart to vain regret, because but the casket that lies
Speaker 1: here the gem that filled its sparkles. Yet, so after
Speaker 1: Bell's death, her fame really started to spread far and wide,
Speaker 1: and pretty quickly too. Raw notes that it started with
Speaker 1: an obituary sent by the Fort Smith newspaper The Elevator
Speaker 1: to several newspapers in the eastern United States, and many
Speaker 1: of the papers just ignored the obituary, you know, who
Speaker 1: is this random lady from the West. But the New
Speaker 1: York Times ran it under the headline quote a desperate
Speaker 1: woman killed, and parts of it read Belle is the
Speaker 1: wife of Cole Younger Jim Star, which is spelled incorrectly.
Speaker 1: Her second husband was shot down by the side of
Speaker 1: Bell less than two years ago. Bell Star married Cole
Speaker 1: Younger directly after the war, but left him and joined
Speaker 1: a band of outlaws that operated in the Indian Territory.
Speaker 1: She had been arrested for murder and robbery a score
Speaker 1: of times but always managed to escape, So that definitely
Speaker 1: built up the bandit queen legend, and things just kind
Speaker 1: of spiraled from there. An editor and publisher named Richard K.
Speaker 1: Fox saw the New York Times obituary, got interested, and
Speaker 1: by eighteen eighty nine he'd written a paperback called Bell Star,
Speaker 1: The Bandit Queen or the Female Jesse James and most
Speaker 1: now seemed to consider Fox's work as having been largely fictionalized,
Speaker 1: but for years a lot of people regarded it as biography. Later, writers,
Speaker 1: including William Harmon, who wrote a book about Judge parker In,
Speaker 1: even used Fox's book as a source material for their
Speaker 1: own accounts of Bell's life, and later on to movies,
Speaker 1: including the ninety one film Bell Star, compounded this sensationalized take. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you look at pictures of Bell Star, you're going
Speaker 1: to find that side full one and then a lot
Speaker 1: of movie pictures. Um. Finally, though, in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: researchers started trying to get at her real story, you know,
Speaker 1: what was behind this obviously fictional obituary and the later
Speaker 1: admittedly fictionalized accounts of her work, and interviewed or descendants
Speaker 1: and looked into legal records and letters for clues, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to find out what really happened. And it's still
Speaker 1: kind of hard to get quite at who she was.
Speaker 1: But it seems like even if she wasn't truly an
Speaker 1: outlaw queen, she certainly did have an outlaw spirit, She
Speaker 1: had outlaw potential she did. It seems like she had
Speaker 1: conflicting desires to be a um a ranch wife and
Speaker 1: be a bandit queen. And I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: summed up in in this quote that I like from
Speaker 1: Bell that she gave to a reporter a couple of
Speaker 1: years before her death, she said, I regard myself as
Speaker 1: a woman who's seen much of life, and I think,
Speaker 1: no matter what's true and what's fiction about her, that's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to deny. Well, and she's almost the
Speaker 1: kind of person who you like to imagine there are
Speaker 1: some of these accounts that will just never know about.
Speaker 1: I mean, it does add to a person's legend if
Speaker 1: there's still a little obscure after all of this research
Speaker 1: that's been put into them, that's very true. Well that's
Speaker 1: all about all we have on Bell's life, on Bell
Speaker 1: Star's life. If you would like to, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe add your own Bell Star stories to the mix,
Speaker 1: or give us your best fictionalized account of Bell Star
Speaker 1: that we haven't looked into or mentioned yet, or your
Speaker 1: favorite movie of the wild West. We were talking about
Speaker 1: Western's earlier today, so I'm curious as to ones that
Speaker 1: people like because I'm always wondering which ones I should
Speaker 1: check out. I didn't watch a lot of like my youth.
Speaker 1: We'll need to check out the Bell Star movie. We'll
Speaker 1: have to check out the Bell Star movie. I actually
Speaker 1: haven't seen that. So if you have any suggestions like
Speaker 1: that for We're just any suggestions at all. Maybe you
Speaker 1: don't have anything that's wild West, but you just want
Speaker 1: to request a different sort of episode, feel free to
Speaker 1: write us. We are at History Podcast at Discovery dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can look us up on Facebook and we're
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Miston History and appropriately enough for a
Speaker 1: story about a woman who was on the run some
Speaker 1: of our life. We do have an article on bounty hunting.
Speaker 1: You can imagine again Belle saying I don't know who
Speaker 1: he is and you'll never get that bounty. Um. You
Speaker 1: can think all of that while you read our article
Speaker 1: how bounty Hunting works by searching for it on our
Speaker 1: homepage at www dot house stuff works dot com. Be
Speaker 1: sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from
Speaker 1: the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore
Speaker 1: the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house,
Speaker 1: stuff works, iPhone up has a ride down with it
Speaker 1: Today on iTunes, didn't