Larry Wood - Wicked Women of Missouri

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2016 by Larry Wood

All rights reserved

First published 2016

e-book edition 2016

ISBN 978.1.62585.739.2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015958235

print edition ISBN 978.1.46711.966.5

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the reference department at the Joplin Public Library, particularly Patty Crane and Jason Sullivan, for filling numerous interlibrary loan requests for me. A number of other people also helped me in the research for this book in one way or another. These include Steve Weldon of the Jasper County Records Center, Marc Houseman of the Washington Historical Museum and Fred Pfister, former editor of the Ozarks Mountaineer. The various museums, libraries and other organizations that supplied photos for the book are acknowledged in the credit lines, but I would like to say thanks here, too, to those groups.

Thanks also go to The History Press commissioning editor Ben Gibson for his advice and encouragement as I researched and wrote this book and to production editor Katie Stitely for her excellent edit of the manuscript after it was complete.

Chapter 1

BELLE STARR,
QUEEN OF THE BANDITS

Belle Starr was known regionally during the 1880s as an aider and abettor of outlaws and even served a stretch in prison in 1883 for horse theft. But it was not until after she was murdered near Eufaula, Indian Territory (Oklahoma), on February 3, 1889, and dime novelist and National Police Gazette publisher Richard K. Fox released, later the same year, a highly romanticized version of her story, entitled Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen; or, the Female Jesse James, that she was catapulted to nationwide fame. Subsequent authors have repeated and embellished the outlandish legend ever since, to the point that Belle Starr is not just the most famous female outlaw of the Old West but is also one of its most noted figures of either gender. In fact, Belles story was sensationalized, in part, precisely because she was a woman, and many of her supposed exploits rival or top those of her infamous male counterparts. The details of Belle Starrs life are sketchy, but the known facts show that her real story is interesting enough in its own right.

Belle was born Myra Maybelle Shirley on February 5, 1848, in rural northwest Jasper County, Missouri. Her father, John Shirley, was a prosperous farmer, but in the mid-1850s, the family moved to Carthage, the county seat, where Shirley established a hotel on the north side of the courthouse square. Shirley also rented horses and hacks from an adjacent livery, and a blacksmith shop was attached to the livery. His buildings took up almost the whole north side of the square.

After the family moved into town, Myra enrolled in the Carthage Female Academy, and she was considered one of the schools better students, quickly mastering its classic curriculum and also learning to play the piano. As a girl, Myra also attended a private school, conducted by William Cravens, held on the second floor of the Masonic Hall in the Carthage public square. A former schoolmate remembered many years later that Myra was bright and intelligent but had a fierce nature and was willing to fight anyone, boy or girl, with whom she got into a disagreement. Myra was often asked to perform on the piano, and many people flattered her for her musical performances and other accomplishments. She grew somewhat vain and was known by some of her schoolmates as Carthages little rich girl. Another acquaintance, however, remembered Myra as rather a pretty girl whom everybody liked.

A competent horsewoman, Myra enjoyed riding about the countryside with her elder brother John Allison, usually called Bud. He reportedly taught her how to handle a rifle and a pistol. When the Civil War came on, the Shirley family sided with the South. Bud joined up to fight for the Rebel cause and soon became a member of an irregular guerrilla band. Two well-known legends about Belle Starr that arose posthumously involve her activities surrounding her beloved brothers Civil War service.

According to the first legend, Myra was out on a scouting expedition for her brother Bud and his guerrilla pals in early February 1862. As she was returning home, she passed through Newtonia, thirty-five miles from Carthage, on her sixteenth birthday and was detained by Major Edwin B. Eno. One of the guerrillas biggest nemeses in southwest Missouri, Eno had sent a detachment toward Carthage in search of Bud and his comrades, and he knew that Myra was on a mission of espionage.

The girl was held in an upstairs room of the Mathew Ritchey mansion, which Eno was using as his headquarters. The room was furnished with a piano, which Myra supposedly played during her captivity. At last, Eno, thinking his men had had ample time to reach Carthage, released Myra, taunting her as he did so by telling her that her brother was likely under arrest by now. Myra rushed out of the house, cut a sprout from a cherry tree to use as a riding whip and quickly mounted her trusty steed. She galloped away, using the switch to urge the horse onward. Taking a shortcut, she left the main road to cut across country and miraculously reached Carthage ahead of the Federals to warn her brother and his friends of their approach. When the Union soldiers rode into town a half hour later, Myra was there to greet them with a smile and to inform them that Captain Shirley and his men were long gone.

About the only part of this tale, first promulgated in Samuel W. Harmans 1898 Hell on the Border, that can be substantiated by primary sources is the fact that Major Eno was stationed at Newtonia during the Civil War. But even in this particular, Harman got the date wrong; Eno did not arrive on the scene in Newtonia until 1863. The rest of the story seems to be fantasy. Even if Myra did sometimes spy for her elder brother in the immediate Carthage area, it seems unlikely that a fifteen-year-old girl would have ventured thirtyfive miles from home by herself on such a dangerous mission. Some of this story is demonstrably untrue, such as the idea that it occurred on Myras sixteenth birthday, and all of it smacks of romantic nonsense.

The other well-known Belle Starr legend stemming from her time as a girl in Missouri during the Civil War involves Buds death. One day during the summer of 1864, Bud and another guerrilla, Milt Norris, were taking a meal at the home of a Southern sympathizer named Mrs. Stewart in Sarcoxie when a detachment of Federal militia surrounded the place. A woman who lived nearby stated many years later that both men dashed out of the house to make a run for it and that Bud Shirley was shot and killed as he leaped over a fence, falling dead on the other side. Norris was wounded but managed to escape and carry the dreaded news to the Shirley family. The next day, Myra Shirley and her mother came to Sarcoxie to claim the body. With two big pistols swinging from a belt around her waist, Myra was not timid in making it known among those she saw that she meant to get revenge for her brothers death.