Pearl Hart Robs a Stagecoach

On This Day in History: May 30

Sometimes your concerns about the guy your daughter is dating are justified. Born Pearl Taylor in Ontario, Canada to a good family, she eloped with a bad boy at the age of 16. Twelve years later she committed one of the last stagecoach robberies in U.S. history.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: May 30, 1899--

Her family was affluent, and they sent Pearl to an expensive boarding school where she met a drunken gambler and womanizer named Frank Hart and she said oh fuck yeah he’s dreamy, and married him. Big surprise, he was an abusive piece of shit, and she left him and returned to her mother. But like many who are abused, Pearl was under the spell of the controlling Frank and she went back to him, then left him again and returned again several times. She had two children with Hart, sending them to be raised by her mother.

Pearl left her husband again in 1893, and earned her living in mining camps as a cook and sex worker. During this time she developed a fondness for booze, cigars, and morphine. She still loved her mom though, and in 1899 she learned her mother was gravely ill and was desperate to travel home to see her. But she had no money for the fare. I know, she said, I’ll rob a stagecoach. She involved a man with the alias “Joe Boot” in her scheme, but neither were criminal masterminds, and they didn’t think about how to get away with their caper.

On May 30, 1899, Pearl, her hair cut short and wearing men’s clothing, along with Joe, held up a stagecoach outside the city of Globe, Arizona. There was no one riding shotgun because it had been years since anyone robbed a stagecoach and the driver was all the fuck you doing? People don’t rob stagecoaches anymore. But Pearl said hands up motherfucker my mom is sick.

They got $400 from the passengers, and Pearl returned a dollar to each of them for a night’s food and lodging. Then the pair fucked off into the bush. Posse time!

While trying to avoid the law they got lost and rode in circles, and six days later the sheriff and his men came upon the sleeping thieves. Joe said hey I give up and Pearl said you’ll never take me alive and fought like a rabid wildcat overdosed on Adderall. But yeah, they still took her alive.

A few days later she used her beauty and charms to break out of jail, but her freedom was short-lived. Her exploits made her a celebrity. She was sentenced to five years and served two. Afterward, she became part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show for a short time, and was involved in several petty crimes. Her second marriage, which lasted 50 years, was a quieting influence on Pearl. She led a private life from then on, living to be 84.

NOTE: This piece was researched and written by a human, not some bullshit “ai” plagiarism software.

Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.