Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from houtof
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: to blame in chalk reboarding and I'm fair douting. And
Speaker 1: when you're researching history, as we often do, of course,
Speaker 1: it can get difficult sometimes to distinguish between mere legend
Speaker 1: in fact mad trapper exactly, And that's why you'll often
Speaker 1: hear us say things like sources disagree or offer up
Speaker 1: to possible versions of events rather than just giving you one.
Speaker 1: Sometimes this simply comes down to how sources have come
Speaker 1: by their information. Did they use primary sources or things
Speaker 1: like newspaper articles and other publications as their sources. Other times,
Speaker 1: myths originate with people close to the subject, and sometimes,
Speaker 1: as we saw with free to Carllo advertising her own
Speaker 1: birth date as being three years later than it actually was,
Speaker 1: the discrepancies actually originate with the subjects some elves. Who
Speaker 1: can you trust? Who can you trust? Regardless of how
Speaker 1: these come about, though perhaps nowhere are these sorts of
Speaker 1: discrepancies more apparent than they are with the story of
Speaker 1: Bell Star, a notorious nineteenth century outlaw of America's Wild West.
Speaker 1: At least that's how people think of her, though. Descriptions
Speaker 1: of Bell Star from so called biographies and contemporary newspaper
Speaker 1: accounts and were recently in pop culture paint her as
Speaker 1: a bandit queen, this beautiful leader of a band of
Speaker 1: outlaws who held up stage coaches, cleaned out crooked poker games,
Speaker 1: six shooters, smoking at her sides, and spent all of
Speaker 1: her free time in saloons hanging out with shady characters.
Speaker 1: It's quite a romantic picture. But more recent accounts of
Speaker 1: Bell's life contradict a lot of these points and suggests
Speaker 1: that while Bell was certainly no saint, she also wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily the female Jesse James as some sources made her
Speaker 1: out to be. In fact, she might have been a
Speaker 1: devoted wife, loving mother, and a pretty good neighbor. At times,
Speaker 1: she might have been even law abiding. So in this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a look at bell Stars life
Speaker 1: and try to get it her real story, or as
Speaker 1: close as possible, and also examine why she got her
Speaker 1: wild outlaw reputation in the first place. She was born
Speaker 1: Myra Maybel Shirley on February five, eight and her father,
Speaker 1: John Shirley, had been kind of a black sheep of
Speaker 1: a wealthy Virginia family. He moved around a lot, and
Speaker 1: he was married and divorced twice before meeting and marrying
Speaker 1: Eliza Pennington, who was a hat Field of Hatfield and
Speaker 1: McCoy fame. The couple settled initially in southern Missouri, so
Speaker 1: John Shirley started out farming in that area to make
Speaker 1: a living in Myra Maybel and her two brothers, one
Speaker 1: older one younger were born while he was doing just that,
Speaker 1: but the kids were still young when in the eighteen fifties,
Speaker 1: John sold the farm, which had been pretty successful along
Speaker 1: and moved the family to the county seat of Carthage, Missouri,
Speaker 1: And once they were there, he used the money from
Speaker 1: the sale of the farm to buy up some land
Speaker 1: in the city, build a tavern, stable, blacksmith shop, and
Speaker 1: most notably, a hotel, and through all of those combined
Speaker 1: ventures he became pretty wealthy, actually very wealthy, and was
Speaker 1: considered one of the most, if not the most prominent
Speaker 1: resident in Carthage. And as his daughter, Myra Maybel, grew
Speaker 1: up with a lot of advantages. She attended the Carthage
Speaker 1: Female Academy, where she learned everything from grammar and arithmetic
Speaker 1: to Latin Greek and Hebrew and her father, who actually
Speaker 1: I think worked with neighbors to have that school set
Speaker 1: up for her so that she would get an education.
Speaker 1: He also paid for her to learn the piano, because
Speaker 1: of course, no proper Southern girl could get by without
Speaker 1: learning to play the piano, or so this family believed
Speaker 1: at least. And Myra Maybel wasn't oblivious to her status
Speaker 1: as a little rich girl either. She loved to show off,
Speaker 1: especially for guests at her parents hotel, but she wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly the perfect little lady either. Piano playing aside, she
Speaker 1: was a bit the tomboys. She loved riding horses. She
Speaker 1: was quite skilled at it. She'd go for these long
Speaker 1: rides with her older brother Bud, whom she really adored,
Speaker 1: and he taught her how to shoot a pistol and
Speaker 1: a rifle too. According to Belle of the West, The
Speaker 1: True Story of Bell Star by Margaret Row, Young Mara
Speaker 1: may Bell was known for galloping wildly down Carthage's main street,
Speaker 1: randomly popping off bullets from a pistol that she carried
Speaker 1: with her. People apparently thought this was kind of an
Speaker 1: endearing trade. They were amused and good natured about it
Speaker 1: maybe because Carthage was such a frontier town. It was
Speaker 1: kind of fun to see this well bred girl riding
Speaker 1: her horse down main street shooting, though you probably couldn't
Speaker 1: do this in a in an established southern town. But
Speaker 1: she always carried her pistol with her, and later in
Speaker 1: life she even started referring to it as my baby.
Speaker 1: But we'll see kind of that affection for her weapon
Speaker 1: and talk about that more later on. One of her
Speaker 1: biggest faults was her quick temper. She was always ready
Speaker 1: to brawl if she got into a disagreement someone, and
Speaker 1: we mean by brawl, we don't just mean getting an argument,
Speaker 1: we mean physically physically started with girls or boys. So
Speaker 1: when the Civil War started in eighteen sixty one, Myra
Speaker 1: Maybell put that wild, quick tempered side of hers to you.
Speaker 1: So just to give you a little bit of background
Speaker 1: on the situation. At the time, Missouri was kind of
Speaker 1: a land divided. People who had settled in the northern
Speaker 1: part of the state supported the North, while those who
Speaker 1: had settled in the southern part of the state sympathized
Speaker 1: with the South and the Confederacy. The relations between Jasper County,
Speaker 1: which is where the Shirley family lived in neighboring Kansas
Speaker 1: had also been pretty bad. Even in the years leading
Speaker 1: up to the war. Bands of raiders who were known
Speaker 1: as Jayhawkers who supported the Union, would come over and
Speaker 1: destroy Missouri communities, and meanwhile, rebel raiders known as Bushwhackers
Speaker 1: would retaliate. We've talked about this a little bit in
Speaker 1: previous episodes, but one of the most famous of these
Speaker 1: guerrilla rebel groups was led by William Clark Quantrill, who
Speaker 1: led his Confederate Raiders across that Missouri Kansas line. Yes,
Speaker 1: actually Frank and Jesse James and Cole Younger, all of
Speaker 1: whom would of course later become famous Outlaws, were part
Speaker 1: of this group. John Shirley was also a big supporter
Speaker 1: of Quancholl's Raiders, and when the war broke out, Myra
Speaker 1: Maybel's brother Bud became one, working his way up to
Speaker 1: the rank of captain. According to an article by Richard
Speaker 1: d Arnutt in Wild West, Bud was actually so good
Speaker 1: at what he did. Union soldiers were always out to
Speaker 1: get him, but he always managed to evade them too,
Speaker 1: And my Ra Maybell, who was in her teens at
Speaker 1: that point, played a big part in that. For one thing.
Speaker 1: She was pretty, she was small, she had a nice complexion,
Speaker 1: she had long black hair and dark eyes, and she
Speaker 1: would flirt with Union soldiers to get information from them,
Speaker 1: so very bell boyd esk if you remember that episode
Speaker 1: about the Confederate not just the same in name alone, No,
Speaker 1: not just in name alone. She would use her feminine
Speaker 1: wiles as much as bell Boy did to get information.
Speaker 1: She'd learned things like the out of an enemy ammunition train,
Speaker 1: or the location of a new Union camp, or if
Speaker 1: there were specifically trap set for Bud and his gang.
Speaker 1: And according to Row's work, many wives and sisters of
Speaker 1: raiders were doing this sort of thing, but in Myra
Speaker 1: Maybel's case, her spine became part of her bandit queen's
Speaker 1: story later on, because of her later career, some writers,
Speaker 1: for example, suggest that Myra Maybel had her own band
Speaker 1: of girls even or that she was actually a part
Speaker 1: of Quantrill's group, but historical records don't really support either
Speaker 1: of those ideas. That's not to say that she didn't
Speaker 1: get her hands sturdy either. One account that Raw relates
Speaker 1: describes Myra Maybel being held captive by a Union major
Speaker 1: so that she wouldn't run off and warn her brother
Speaker 1: Bud that soldiers were on their way to ambush him.
Speaker 1: The major released her, though making a big mistake kind
Speaker 1: of again reminded me of Bellboy people underestimating well, I
Speaker 1: think part of it when she was throwing a fit
Speaker 1: to the entire time. He kept her kind of locked
Speaker 1: in a room and she was, you know, yelling at him,
Speaker 1: and he was ready. He was like, Okay, you can
Speaker 1: go now. But that was a mistake because he released
Speaker 1: her kind of expecting that she wouldn't have time anyway
Speaker 1: to catch up and warn her brother, except he didn't
Speaker 1: realize how great she was on horseback. She leapt under
Speaker 1: her horse, rode through the undergrowth, and taking this little shortcut,
Speaker 1: she managed to reach her brother and warn him with
Speaker 1: really time to spare, but unfortunately she couldn't always keep
Speaker 1: him safe. Bud and a companion were eating at the
Speaker 1: home of a Southern sympathizer in June of eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: four when the house was surrounded by federal militia. He
Speaker 1: tried to escape over a fence, but was shot and
Speaker 1: killed in the process. Some accounts have Myra Maybell heading
Speaker 1: off looking for revenge after the scuns ablazing, but again
Speaker 1: there are no records that really support that she did that,
Speaker 1: But this was sort of the start of bigger problems
Speaker 1: for the Shirley family. Um After the war, the Shirley's
Speaker 1: business was ruined. John Shirley was so upset by the
Speaker 1: loss of its on that he relocated the family to Texas,
Speaker 1: to a little settlement that was outside of Dallas. So
Speaker 1: in Texas, John Churley went back to his original profession
Speaker 1: farming again, and Myra Maybel went to a one room school,
Speaker 1: but she was pretty bored because she was really ahead
Speaker 1: of where everyone else was academically. She was also one
Speaker 1: of the oldest people in class. Luckily, though, or maybe unfortunately,
Speaker 1: she had plenty to distract her. Lots of local outlaws, Yes,
Speaker 1: outlaws like Frank and Jesse James and Cole Younger who
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, Whomira Maybel used to associate with somewhat
Speaker 1: when she was in Missouri and she got to know
Speaker 1: them there. They would sometimes visit her family's home in
Speaker 1: Texas to hide out there because many of the former
Speaker 1: Confederate guerillas like them had become outlaws after the war,
Speaker 1: in part because the government wouldn't offer them amnesty, so
Speaker 1: they robbed banks and they held up trains, but because
Speaker 1: of their history together, the Shirley's agreed to help them out.
Speaker 1: And it's this continu and you'd association with people like
Speaker 1: James and Younger that just added to Myra Maybell's reputation.
Speaker 1: In fact, many people believed that Cole Younger and Myra
Speaker 1: Maybel had an affair and that they had an illegitimate
Speaker 1: daughter together, And this belief partially stems from something she
Speaker 1: later said herself. She said, when Younger and his gang
Speaker 1: were hiding out at her family's home, that was when
Speaker 1: she became reacquainted with the first man she ever loved,
Speaker 1: and people just assumed that this met Younger, But both
Speaker 1: Rowse and Arnette's work say that she was referring to
Speaker 1: the outlaw Jim Read so Meira Maybel had met Read
Speaker 1: back in Missouri as well, where their families were friends,
Speaker 1: and he also hit out at the Shirley's Texas farm
Speaker 1: from time to time, and he and Myra Maybel rekindled
Speaker 1: their relationship and got married in eighteen sixty six. Again,
Speaker 1: though with Myra may Beel or Bell's life, you have
Speaker 1: some real dramatized accounts that marriage even has been dramatized
Speaker 1: by some writers who have said that Belle's parents didn't approve,
Speaker 1: and that the couple eloped with their band of death
Speaker 1: Barados and attendants, and that they were even married on
Speaker 1: horseback by one of the gang members. However, it's not
Speaker 1: quite as adventurous as that. There's an actual marriage license
Speaker 1: from November one, eighteen sixty six that shows Jim and
Speaker 1: Myra Maybell were married by the Reverend F. M. William,
Speaker 1: So not on horseback as far as we know. Yeah, so, actually,
Speaker 1: at first a fairly traditional marriage ceremony and at first
Speaker 1: a very traditional marriage. Read tried his hand at farming
Speaker 1: and other jobs like saddle making in Texas. But by
Speaker 1: September eighteen sixty eight, when Myra Maybell gave birth to
Speaker 1: her daughter, Rosie Lee, who they called Pearl, they were
Speaker 1: living on the Read homestead back in Missouri. Myra Maybell's
Speaker 1: younger brother Ed was shot and killed for stealing horses
Speaker 1: not long after this, so it's likely that she and
Speaker 1: Pearl made a visit to Texas. But other than that,
Speaker 1: there's not too much documentation of her life around this time,
Speaker 1: which of course has led to some rumors. Some biographies
Speaker 1: have filled this space where we don't really know what's
Speaker 1: going on about her, with stories of her carousing in
Speaker 1: Dallas saloons. But Missouri neighbors actually refuted this and recalled
Speaker 1: her attending church with her daughter and her and the
Speaker 1: rest of the Reed family every week. So pretty standard stuff, absolutely,
Speaker 1: very as we said, traditional, and not at all what
Speaker 1: you would expect of an outlaw. Jim Reid, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, though he wasn't much for the farming, church
Speaker 1: going quiet life. He fell in with Tom Starr, a
Speaker 1: Cherokee who had a whiskey and cattle wrestling business after
Speaker 1: the war, and he took part in these shady activities
Speaker 1: until he killed a man to avenge his brother Scott's death.
Speaker 1: And so at this point Jim Reid is a fugitive
Speaker 1: for both murder and the whiskey dealings, and so he
Speaker 1: takes Myra Maybel and Pearl and heads for California in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine. So while they were there they expanded
Speaker 1: their family a little bit. Myra Maybell gave birth to
Speaker 1: their son, and James Edwin, whom they called Eddie. But
Speaker 1: by March eighteen seventy one or eighteen seventy two, depending
Speaker 1: on the source, read got into trouble again for passing
Speaker 1: counterfeit money, and they had to flee again, this time
Speaker 1: back to Texas. When they were there, Myra Maybel's parents
Speaker 1: gave them part of their land to farm, you know,
Speaker 1: again trying to set them up with this more stable life.
Speaker 1: But of course that couldn't really hold Read's attention for
Speaker 1: very long. He kept getting mixed up with other outlaws,
Speaker 1: and he and his band were even accused of murdering
Speaker 1: a couple of people in addition to the man Read
Speaker 1: had already murdered. So he and Bill ended up on
Speaker 1: the run again, this time escaping to Indian Territory, leaving
Speaker 1: the kids with her parents. And fortunately we've talked about
Speaker 1: Indian Territory a little bit on earlier episodes and what
Speaker 1: a great hideout it could be for bandits like that.
Speaker 1: And again was in that Oklahoma sort of area. I know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about that several times before, and people may
Speaker 1: be tired of us going over the whole Indian Territory thing,
Speaker 1: but just to give you an idea of where it was,
Speaker 1: and when they went there, Read's crimes didn't stop. It
Speaker 1: was almost as if that guerilla life he had lived
Speaker 1: jewelry in the Civil War. He just couldn't let go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was too exciting for him and he didn't want
Speaker 1: to give it up. So eventually Bell started getting mixed
Speaker 1: up in some of his crimes, at least by way
Speaker 1: of rumors. For example, in late eighteen seventy three, Read
Speaker 1: and two others robbed the family of What Grayson, a
Speaker 1: judge in Indian Territory, and according to some rumors, Mayra
Speaker 1: Maybel had helped in this dressed as a man. Grayson
Speaker 1: himself later so that this couldn't be true, though, because
Speaker 1: she was too petite, and he said that the guys
Speaker 1: who had attacked him were large. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: it's one person's take on it. And if he was
Speaker 1: in the middle of this, maybe he could have been
Speaker 1: mistaken and he might not want to admit that a
Speaker 1: woman helped draw him. That is also perhaps an aspect
Speaker 1: of it. But eventually Myra Maybel did leave Jim Read
Speaker 1: and moved back in with her parents. She kind of
Speaker 1: got sick of that life of crime, and I could
Speaker 1: imagine she just got sick of being on the run
Speaker 1: all the time too, and being separated from her kids.
Speaker 1: But it probably also had to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that Reid had taken up with another woman and she
Speaker 1: found out about it. Reid meanwhile kept ongoing his gang,
Speaker 1: kept robbing people, stage coaches, stealing livestock, and by August
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four, there was a pretty considerable seven thousand
Speaker 1: dollar bounty on his head. That August, he was traveling
Speaker 1: with a supposed friend named John T. Morris, who had actually,
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to him, been deputized to capture him, and when
Speaker 1: they stopped for a meal together on August six, Morris
Speaker 1: pulled a gun on him. Reid tried to escape and
Speaker 1: was killed. There's another aspect here to Myra Maybel's legend, though, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Legend has it that Morris immediately contacted Myra Maybel and
Speaker 1: asked her to come and identify Jim Reid's corpse. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was probably thinking there's no love lost between this two.
Speaker 1: She knows about his affair, she's not happy with him,
Speaker 1: so of course she she'll be happy to come and
Speaker 1: identify his body. But when she showed up, she took
Speaker 1: one look at the body and she said, quote, I
Speaker 1: never saw him in my life before. And then she
Speaker 1: turned to Morris and said, you will never get that bounty.
Speaker 1: So that's our dramatic conclusion to this part one freeze frame.
Speaker 1: You can imagine myra they're looking at the body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's an interesting perspective to take on a situation, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, she obviously was done with him, she was
Speaker 1: furious with him for having an affair with another woman,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, she still had this loyalty
Speaker 1: to him to this outlaw didn't want his killer to
Speaker 1: make any money off of his death. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, we will tell you a little bit more
Speaker 1: about how Morris did make out in the continuation of
Speaker 1: the story of Bell Star, and of course we'll go
Speaker 1: into the rest of her life. Well she was later
Speaker 1: exploit later exploits, and um, you know, talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about how this reputation of hers came about,
Speaker 1: and finally go into her one and only experience in jail.
Speaker 1: All right, So that is next time though, so you'll
Speaker 1: have to stay tuned until then. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you want to suggest, I know, you guys love these
Speaker 1: Old West characters so much, if you want to suggest
Speaker 1: more of your favorites to us, we could be inclined
Speaker 1: to keep covering this, so feel free to email us
Speaker 1: a history podcast at Discovery dot com. We're also on
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Speaker 1: if you want to learn a little bit more about
Speaker 1: some notorious troublemakers throughout history, we have a great article
Speaker 1: on our website called ten Public Enemies and you can
Speaker 1: look that up by visiting our homepage at www dot
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