Belle Starr

Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr (February 5, 1848 – February 3, 1889), better known as Belle Starr, was an American outlaw who gained national notoriety after her violent death.

She associated with the James–Younger Gang and other outlaws. She was convicted of horse theft in 1883. She was fatally shot in 1889 in a case that is still officially unsolved. Her story was popularized by Richard K. Fox — editor and publisher of the ''National Police Gazette'' — and she later became a popular character in television and films.

Early life

Belle Starr was born Myra Maybelle Shirley on her father's farm near Carthage, Missouri, on February 5, 1848. Most of her family members called her May. Her father, John Shirley, prospered raising wheat, corn, hogs and horses, though he was considered to be the "black sheep" of a well-to-do Virginia family which had moved west to Indiana, where he married and divorced twice. Her mother, Elizabeth "Eliza" Hatfield Shirley, was John Shirley's third wife and a distant relative to the Hatfields of the famous family feud. In the 1860s, Belle's father sold the farm and moved the family to Carthage, where he bought a livery stable and blacksmith shop on the town square.

May 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.

During the Civil War

May's brother, John A. M. "Bud" Shirley, six years older than she, was active in Jasper County among the irregular forces known as bushwhackers, guerilla bands organized to resist the federal troops who had been sent to compel Missouri to join the war against the Confederacy. May was reputed to have supported her brother in these efforts, perhaps as a spy, but exactly how and to what extent is obscured by the much-embroidered and disputed Belle Starr legend. Bud Shirley was killed by federal troops in late June 1864. Soon after,

sick at heart over Bud’s death and his business ruined by the theft and destruction, ohn Shirleydisposed of his property, loaded his family and household goods into two Conestoga wagons, and set out for Texas ... Shirley’s destination was Scyene, a small settlement ten miles southeast of Dallas. Myra ay a dutiful daughter, drove one of the wagons.

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 attendence" and was regarded as "rather wild" by teacher Mrs. Poole.

After the Civil War

Following the war, members of the Reed family also moved to Texas and, according to Collin County marriage records, James C. Reed and Mira 'sic''M. Shirley were married there on November 1, 1866. Two years later, she gave birth to her first child, Rosie Lee (nicknamed Pearl). Belle always harbored a strong sense of style, which fed into her later legend. A crack shot, she used to ride sidesaddle while dressed in a black velvet riding habit and a plumed hat, carrying two pistols, with cartridge belts across her hips. Reed turned to crime and was wanted for murder in Arkansas, which caused the family to move to California, where their second child, James Edwin (Eddie), was born in 1871.

Later returning to Texas, Reed was involved with several criminal gangs. While Reed initially tried his hand at farming, he would grow restless and associated with the Starr clan, a Cherokee Indian family notorious for whiskey, cattle, and horse thievery in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), as well as the James and Younger gangs. In April 1874, despite a lack of any evidence, a warrant was issued for her arrest for a stagecoach robbery by her husband and others. Reed was killed in August of that year in Paris, Texas, where he had settled down with his family.

Marriage to Sam Starr

Belle was allegedly briefly married for three weeks to Charles Younger, uncle of Cole Younger in 1878, but this is not substantiated by any evidence. There are numerous claims that Belle's daughter Pearl Reed was actually Pearl Younger, but in Cole Younger's autobiography (quoted in Glen Shirley's "Belle Starr and her times"), he discounted that as rubbish and stated what he knew truly of Belle.

In 1880, she married a Cherokee man named Sam Starr and settled with the Starr family in the Indian Territory. There, 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 1883, Belle and Sam were arrested by Bass Reeves, charged with horse theft and tried before "The Hanging Judge" Isaac 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 Marshall, "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.

By her marriage to Sam Starr, she was an aunt to Henry Starr.

Unsolved murder

For the last 2+ years of her life, gossips and scandal sheets linked her to a series of men with colorful names, including Jack Spaniard, Jim French and Blue Duck, after which, she married a relative of Sam Starr, Jim July, who later became Jim July Starr, who was some 15 years younger than she was.

On February 3, 1889, two days before her 41st birthday, Belle was killed. She was riding home from a neighbor's house when she was ambushed. 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 in the shoulder and face. Legend says she was shot with her own double-barrel shotgun.

According to Frank "Pistol Pete" Eaton, her death was due to different circumstances. She had been attending a dance. Frank Eaton had been the last person to dance with Belle Starr when Edgar J. Watson, one of her sharecroppers and clearly intoxicated, had asked to dance with her. When Belle Starr declined, he later followed her. When she stopped to give her horse a drink at a creek on the way home, he shot and killed her. According to Frank Eaton, Watson was tried, convicted, and executed by hanging for the murder.

However, another story says that there were no witnesses and that no one ever was convicted of the murder. Suspects with apparent motive included her new husband and both of her children as well as Edgar Watson, because he was afraid she was going to turn him in to the authorities as an escaped murderer from Florida with a price on his head. Watson, who was killed in 1910, was tried for her murder, but was acquitted, and the ambush has entered Western lore as " unsolved".

One source suggests her son, whom she had allegedly beaten for mistreating her beloved horse, may have been her killer.

Story becomes popularized

Although an obscure figure outside Texas throughout most of her life, Belle's story was picked up by the dime novel and ''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.

Children

Eddie Reed, Belle's son, was convicted of horse theft and receiving stolen property in July 1889. Judge Parker sent him to prison in Columbus, Ohio. Rosie Reed, Belle's daughter, also known as Pearl Starr, became a prostitute to raise funds for Eddie's release. She eventually obtained a presidential pardon in 1893. Eddie became a deputy in Fort Smith and killed two outlaw brothers named Crittenden in 1895, and was himself killed in a saloon in Claremore, Oklahoma

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