Okla-homey
8/6/2006, 07:23 AM
August 6, 1874 Belle Starr's first husband slain
132 years ago on this day, a traiterous co-conspirator killed Jim Reed, the first husband of the famous hillbilly bandit queen Belle Starr.
Reed's main claim to fame came from his marriage to Myra Maybelle Shirley, better known today as Belle Starr. Reed quickly proved to be a poor choice for a husband. He was more interested in horse racing and gambling than in farming, and he eventually became involved with a ruthless Cherokee outlaw named Tom Starr. Starr led a brutal band of rustlers and thieves, and he liked to wear a rawhide necklace strung with the rotting ears of the men he had killed. Under Starr's tutelage, Reed became involved in rustling and whiskey running, and he may have taken part in several murders.
As Reed became more notorious, the couple tried to lay low, and in 1873, they retreated to an isolated farm in Texas with their children. Reed seemed unable to settle down for long, however. In April 1874, he joined a small gang in holding up a stagecoach, again attracting the attention of the law.
Bounty hunters eager to win the sizeable reward offered for Reed's capture-dead or alive-soon tracked him down. Reed managed to elude his pursuers, but on this day in 1874, a treacherous member of his own gang killed him for the reward money.
Two years later, Belle married Sam Starr, the handsome son of Reed's old Cherokee partner. Sam Starr, too, eventually died in a gun battle. Belle lived for three more years before finally following her two husbands to a violent death, shot in the back by an unidentified enemy.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/4206/bellestarr2ag.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Belle Starr
As with the lives of other famous outlaws like Billy the Kid and Jesse James, fanciful accounts printed in newspapers and dime novels made Belle Starr's harsh and violent life appear far more romantic than it actually was.
Born Myra Belle Shirley on a small farm near Carthage, Missouri, in 1848, she received an education in the classics and became a competent pianist. Seemingly headed for an unexciting but respectable middle-class life, her fate was changed by the outbreak of the Civil War, which ruined her father's business as a Carthage innkeeper and claimed the life of her brother Edwin. Devastated, the Shirley family abandoned Missouri to try to make a fresh start in texass.
In texass, Belle began her life-long pattern of associating with men of questionable character. She just had a penchant for bad boys. In 1866, she met Cole Younger, a member of the James-Younger gang that was gaining notoriety for a series of daring bank and train robberies. Rumor had it that Younger fathered Belle's first child, Pearl, though the father might have actually been Jim Reed. She later had a son Eddie as well, and just exactly who his father was is a bit murky too.
http://img497.imageshack.us/img497/363/colemugshot1zm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Mugshot of Cole Younger taken after an 1876 arrest.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/5497/bellestarr6ri.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
On this day in 1874, a member of his own gang killed Reed, and Belle was suddenly on her own. Pursued by the law, she drifted into Indian Territory, where she led a band of cattle and horse thieves. There she met a handsome young mixed-blood Cherokee named Sam Starr, who eventually became her common-law husband and new criminal partner. The Starrs managed to elude capture for nearly a decade, but in 1883 they were arrested for horse theft and both served five months in federal prison.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/9316/bellestarr6qm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Belle with her preferred weapon, a .41 calibre Colt single-action revolver popularly called a "Thunderer"
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/3971/bilyscolt41dathunderer0yi.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The .41 calibre "Thunderer" was very popular. it was smaller, and thus easier to conceal than the larger Colt SA .45 revolver. Billythe Kid usually carried a couple of them on his person. The "birds-head" grip made it easier to handle by the smaller hands of women too
Freed from prison, the couple immediately resumed their criminal careers. In 1886, Belle again lost a husband to violent death when Sam Starr was killed in a gunfight with an old enemy. Belle wasted no time in finding a third companion, a Creek named Jim July, an outlaw who was 15 years her junior. Belle chose him mostly because as a white woman in the Territory, she needed an indian husband to retain her interest in territorial lands.
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/4658/bstarr8pe.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Belle aboard "Venus". Beplumed and well dressed, she rode side-saddle as dictated by her respectable upbringing before the Civil War in Missouri
In 1889, July was arrested for robbery and summoned to the federal court in Fort Smith, Arkansas, to face charges. See, Ft Smith was the site of the federal court which had jurisdiction over Indian Territory at the time. As an aside, for a fascinating account of frontier justice, or the lack of it, check out an account of Judge Isaac Parker, the famous "hangin' judge" of that court.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/6514/belleparker3er.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Judge Isaac Parker. In his 21 years on the federal bench, Parker handed out 161 death sentences, of which 79 were carried out. The rest either died in prison, escaped, were pardoned or had their sentences verturned. “People have said to me, ‘You are the judge who has hung so many men,’ and I always answer: ‘It is not I who has hung them. I never hung a man. It is the law,’” Parker said.
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/8757/belle1parker0uw.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Fort Smith gallows. Designed for multiple executions meant no waiting.
Belle accompanied her young lover for part of the journey but turned back before crossing into Arkansas. On her way home, someone ambushed and fatally wounded her with two shotgun blasts to her back on the banks of the Canadian River about 70 miles west of Ft Smith. Her young stud husband Jim July always believed the murderer was a neighbor with whom the couple had been feuding, but no one was ever convicted of the crime.
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/7995/bellestarr0ca.gif (http://imageshack.us)
Belle Starr became a legendary figure and has been the subject of a movie or two.
After Belle was gunned down, her son Eddie was convicted of horse theft and receiving stolen property in July 1889 and Judge Parker sent him to prison in Columbus, Ohio. Pearl subsequently went into prostitution to raise funds for his release resulting in a presidential pardon in 1893. He eventually became a police officer and was killed in the line of duty in December, 1896.
Belle's daughter, Pearl Starr, operated a group of wh0re houses in Van Buren and Fort Smith, Arkansas, from the 1890s until World War I.
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/1206/insane7zo2es.jpg
132 years ago on this day, a traiterous co-conspirator killed Jim Reed, the first husband of the famous hillbilly bandit queen Belle Starr.
Reed's main claim to fame came from his marriage to Myra Maybelle Shirley, better known today as Belle Starr. Reed quickly proved to be a poor choice for a husband. He was more interested in horse racing and gambling than in farming, and he eventually became involved with a ruthless Cherokee outlaw named Tom Starr. Starr led a brutal band of rustlers and thieves, and he liked to wear a rawhide necklace strung with the rotting ears of the men he had killed. Under Starr's tutelage, Reed became involved in rustling and whiskey running, and he may have taken part in several murders.
As Reed became more notorious, the couple tried to lay low, and in 1873, they retreated to an isolated farm in Texas with their children. Reed seemed unable to settle down for long, however. In April 1874, he joined a small gang in holding up a stagecoach, again attracting the attention of the law.
Bounty hunters eager to win the sizeable reward offered for Reed's capture-dead or alive-soon tracked him down. Reed managed to elude his pursuers, but on this day in 1874, a treacherous member of his own gang killed him for the reward money.
Two years later, Belle married Sam Starr, the handsome son of Reed's old Cherokee partner. Sam Starr, too, eventually died in a gun battle. Belle lived for three more years before finally following her two husbands to a violent death, shot in the back by an unidentified enemy.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/4206/bellestarr2ag.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Belle Starr
As with the lives of other famous outlaws like Billy the Kid and Jesse James, fanciful accounts printed in newspapers and dime novels made Belle Starr's harsh and violent life appear far more romantic than it actually was.
Born Myra Belle Shirley on a small farm near Carthage, Missouri, in 1848, she received an education in the classics and became a competent pianist. Seemingly headed for an unexciting but respectable middle-class life, her fate was changed by the outbreak of the Civil War, which ruined her father's business as a Carthage innkeeper and claimed the life of her brother Edwin. Devastated, the Shirley family abandoned Missouri to try to make a fresh start in texass.
In texass, Belle began her life-long pattern of associating with men of questionable character. She just had a penchant for bad boys. In 1866, she met Cole Younger, a member of the James-Younger gang that was gaining notoriety for a series of daring bank and train robberies. Rumor had it that Younger fathered Belle's first child, Pearl, though the father might have actually been Jim Reed. She later had a son Eddie as well, and just exactly who his father was is a bit murky too.
http://img497.imageshack.us/img497/363/colemugshot1zm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Mugshot of Cole Younger taken after an 1876 arrest.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/5497/bellestarr6ri.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
On this day in 1874, a member of his own gang killed Reed, and Belle was suddenly on her own. Pursued by the law, she drifted into Indian Territory, where she led a band of cattle and horse thieves. There she met a handsome young mixed-blood Cherokee named Sam Starr, who eventually became her common-law husband and new criminal partner. The Starrs managed to elude capture for nearly a decade, but in 1883 they were arrested for horse theft and both served five months in federal prison.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/9316/bellestarr6qm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Belle with her preferred weapon, a .41 calibre Colt single-action revolver popularly called a "Thunderer"
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/3971/bilyscolt41dathunderer0yi.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The .41 calibre "Thunderer" was very popular. it was smaller, and thus easier to conceal than the larger Colt SA .45 revolver. Billythe Kid usually carried a couple of them on his person. The "birds-head" grip made it easier to handle by the smaller hands of women too
Freed from prison, the couple immediately resumed their criminal careers. In 1886, Belle again lost a husband to violent death when Sam Starr was killed in a gunfight with an old enemy. Belle wasted no time in finding a third companion, a Creek named Jim July, an outlaw who was 15 years her junior. Belle chose him mostly because as a white woman in the Territory, she needed an indian husband to retain her interest in territorial lands.
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/4658/bstarr8pe.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Belle aboard "Venus". Beplumed and well dressed, she rode side-saddle as dictated by her respectable upbringing before the Civil War in Missouri
In 1889, July was arrested for robbery and summoned to the federal court in Fort Smith, Arkansas, to face charges. See, Ft Smith was the site of the federal court which had jurisdiction over Indian Territory at the time. As an aside, for a fascinating account of frontier justice, or the lack of it, check out an account of Judge Isaac Parker, the famous "hangin' judge" of that court.
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/6514/belleparker3er.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Judge Isaac Parker. In his 21 years on the federal bench, Parker handed out 161 death sentences, of which 79 were carried out. The rest either died in prison, escaped, were pardoned or had their sentences verturned. “People have said to me, ‘You are the judge who has hung so many men,’ and I always answer: ‘It is not I who has hung them. I never hung a man. It is the law,’” Parker said.
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/8757/belle1parker0uw.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Fort Smith gallows. Designed for multiple executions meant no waiting.
Belle accompanied her young lover for part of the journey but turned back before crossing into Arkansas. On her way home, someone ambushed and fatally wounded her with two shotgun blasts to her back on the banks of the Canadian River about 70 miles west of Ft Smith. Her young stud husband Jim July always believed the murderer was a neighbor with whom the couple had been feuding, but no one was ever convicted of the crime.
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/7995/bellestarr0ca.gif (http://imageshack.us)
Belle Starr became a legendary figure and has been the subject of a movie or two.
After Belle was gunned down, her son Eddie was convicted of horse theft and receiving stolen property in July 1889 and Judge Parker sent him to prison in Columbus, Ohio. Pearl subsequently went into prostitution to raise funds for his release resulting in a presidential pardon in 1893. He eventually became a police officer and was killed in the line of duty in December, 1896.
Belle's daughter, Pearl Starr, operated a group of wh0re houses in Van Buren and Fort Smith, Arkansas, from the 1890s until World War I.
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/1206/insane7zo2es.jpg