The Wild West of Yester-Year
Pearl Hart
By Rachel Kovaciny
How does a
respectable young woman from a well-to-do Ontario family
wind up in Arizona’s notorious Yuma Territorial Prison?
Although many
details of Pearl Hart’s life story are obscured by the
legends that sprang up around her in the last days of the
Old West, we do still know basic facts. Pearl Taylor Hart
grew up in Lindsay, Ontario, part of the upper-middle-class
Taylor family. Her parents were religious, well-educated,
and wealthy enough to give their children excellent
educations. They enrolled Pearl in a ladies’ boarding
school, no doubt expecting she would emerge a polished
Victorian lady who would attract an appropriate husband.
Instead, Pearl
eloped with a gambler and con artist named Frederick Hart,
running away from her boarding school to marry him at
seventeen. Over the next few years, the Harts moved from
place to place, sometimes together and sometimes not.
Reportedly, Frederick was abusive, especially when
intoxicated. Like so many abusers, he could also charm and
persuade, and Pearl reunited with him repeatedly.
Frederick found a
job as a barker at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, and
Pearl traveled there with him. While there, she attended
lectures by influential women such as Julia Ward Howe, the
abolitionist poet who wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic
and advocated for women’s suffrage. Pearl also attended
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, where she became fascinated
with sharpshooter Annie Oakley and the idea of the Wild
West.
She went west again,
this time ending up in Arizona. Although the West was not as
exciting and adventure-filled as she expected, she relished
being able to live independently by working as a cook and
washerwoman. However, Frederick found her again, and Pearl
believed his promises to be a good husband and a steady
worker. Frederick found a job managing a local hotel, and
things went well in the Hart family for a while. Frederick
and Pearl liked to frequent saloons together, where Pearl
learned to gamble, drink hard liquor, smoke cigars, and
dabble in opium. They even had their second child, a
daughter.
Frederick returned
to his abusive ways, beat up Pearl, and skipped town before
he could be held accountable. Pearl left her daughter with
her mother and moved from town to town, working as a cook, a
waitress, a washerwoman, and probably a prostitute.
In May 1899, Pearl
received a letter saying her mother was gravely ill. She had
no money for tickets back to Ohio, but she was desperate to
return to her mother and her children. Pearl’s new paramour,
Joe Boot, suggested they could rob a local stagecoach to get
her train fare. Somehow, this seemed like the best option.
She cut her hair short, dressed up in men’s clothing, and
helped Boot rob the stagecoach that ran between Globe and
Florence, Arizona. Hart and Boot got away with over $400,
but they got lost while trying to evade a posse and were
captured after a few days.
Pearl Hart was held
in jail in Tucson, and her story caught the attention of the
national media, who dubbed her the “Bandit Queen.” She
happily posed for photographs for reporters, signed
autographs, and gave interviews. She even briefly escaped
from jail before her trial. And she won her trial and got
them both off the hook for armed robbery with her
impassioned speech to the jury, claiming all she wanted was
to see her dying mother one more time.
Alas, this didn’t
work at their second trial for tampering with the U.S. mail.
They were found guilty and sentenced to Yuma Territorial
Prison, Pearl for five years, and Joe for thirty. Boot
eventually escaped and disappeared, while the Arizona
Territorial Governor pardoned Hart after serving less than
half her sentence. Pearl Hart joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West Show briefly, under an alias. She gave lectures on life
inside the prison at Yuma and attempted to write and publish
her life’s story. Slowly, she faded into obscurity. Census
records show she married a respectable rancher named Bywater
and lived on his Arizona ranch until they both died in 1955,
within four months of each other.
Although not the
only woman to rob a coach, Pearl Hart’s reputation as the
Bandit Queen endured long after the facts about her life
blurred and faded away. ♦