BELLE STARR – THE BANDIT QUEEN – A TUMULTUOUS LIFE
BELLE STARR – THE BANDIT QUEEN – A TUMULTUOUS LIFE
Mayra Maybelle Shirley, aka “the Bandit Queen”, born February 5, 1848 near Carthage, Jasper County, Missouri and killed in an unresolved murder on February 3, 1889 as she was riding home from a neighbors.
After she fell off her horse, she was shot again to make sure she was dead. Her death resulted from shotgun wounds to the back and neck and the shoulder and face. Legend says she was shot with her own double-barrel shotgun.
Myra Shirley received a classical education and learned piano, while graduating from Missouri's Carthage Female Academy, a private institution that her father had helped to found.
According to the book Belle Starr by Burton Rascoe (Random House, 1941), the "Shirleys were regarded as 'rather common,' because they had no slaves." While in school, Myra was "irregular in attendance" and was regarded as "rather wild" by teacher Mrs. Poole
Although she was an obscure figure outside Texas throughout most of her life, Belle’s story was picked up by dime novels and the National Police Gazette publisher Richard K. Fox, who made her name famous with his fictional novel Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James, published in 1889 (the year of her murder). This novel still is cited as a historical reference despite its artistic license and lack of historical accuracy. It was the first of many popular stories that used her name. Even the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Examiner plus other newspapers across the country ran her obituary as she had become a celebrity.
On November 1, 1866, in Collin County, Texas, Belle married James C. Reed (Jim Reed) He was a member of Quantrill’s Raiders and rode with the Younger and James brothers. They had a daughter Rosie Lee, aka known as Pearl Starr. Reed was later killed in Paris, Texas in 1874.
In 1880, she married the Cherokee man Sam Starr and settled with the Starr family in the Indian Territory as he was listed on the Cherokee roles and thus she being non-Indian could also live in the territory. They built a log cabin at Younger’s Bend, on the Canadian River in Indian Territory. Now she began to be well adept as she learned ways of organizing, planning, and fencing for the rustlers, horse thieves, and bootleggers, as well as harboring them from the law. Belle's illegal enterprises proved lucrative enough for her to employ bribery to free her colleagues from the law whenever they were caught.
In 1882, Belle and Sam were charged with horse theft. The arrest warrant was served by Deputy U.S. Marshal Lemuel Marks. The pair were tried before "The Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the prosecutor was United States Attorney W.H.H. Clayton. She was found guilty and served nine months at the Detroit House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan. Belle proved to be a model prisoner and, during her time in jail, she won the respect of the prison matron. In contrast, Sam was incorrigible and assigned to hard labor. In a contradictory account after her arrest by the Marshal, "Belle proved to be a loud and unruly prisoner."
In 1886, she eluded conviction on another theft charge, but, on December 17, Sam Starr was involved in a gunfight with his cousin, law officer Frank West. Both men were killed, and Belle's life as an “outlaw queen”—and what had been the happiest relationship of her life—abruptly ended with her husband's death.
She married a third time, around 1887, to a Creek Indian named Jim July, who took the name Jim July Starr, He was 15 years her junior. The marriage was out of convenience as it allowed Bell to retain her land at Younger’s Bend after Sam Starr’s death.
Burton Rascoe writes in his 1941 book BELLE STARR; THE BANDIT QUEEN, that she was a “consort to bootleggers, stagecoach robbers, bushwhackers, bank robbers, horse thieves and outlaws.”
Belle had two children. Her son Eddie Reed in 1889 was convicted for horse theft and receiving stolen property. He was sentenced by Judge Parker and spent time in a Columbus, Ohio prison. Belle’s daughter, Rossie Reed (aka Pearl Starr) was a prostitute and madam at Fort Smith, Arkansas. Eventually she raised enough money to get Eddie a presidential pardon in 1893. Eddie became a deputy in Fort Smith and killed two outlaw brothers named Crittenden in 1895. He himself was killed in Gibb’s Saloon, Claremore, Oklahoma on December 15, 1896. Pearl operated several bordellos in Van Buren and Fort Smith, Arkansas, from the 1890s to World War I. She died in 1925 in Arizona
Cabinet Card Smith Bros. Halstead Kansas. Circa late 1880’s. Height 6.5 inches (16.5 cm) Width 4.25 inches (10.75 cm).
Interestingly, Belle is shown here with her holstered Schofield ivory handle pistol. She usually wore two Schofield pistols and was buried with them. However, one year after her burial somebody dug up her grave and stole the pistols. This is without a doubt one of the most beautiful and iconic images of Belle Starr and her husband.
Sources: Burton Rascoe – BELLE STARR; THE BANDIT QUEEN
Wild West History Association
Wikipedia