The Younger Story: Belle's First Robbery

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

Today I'm talking about Belle Starr even though my series is about Cole Younger, one of Americas most successful outlaws in the Old West. Yesterday we left off with Cole heading back to Missouri after he came to visit Belle in Texas and found out she was married to another outlaw by the name of Jim Reed.

Cole left Texas a depressed man. Belle was the only woman he'd ever known and I think he was in a state of shock. But it also shows us that he didn't know a dang thing about women. He was a great bank robber but was clueless about women. He expected her to wait for him for 2 years with no word from him at all while he was with his crew.

If you haven't seen this story Cole is standing on the left side with his brother Bob, sitting is Jesse James on the left with his brother Frank:

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Meanwhile Belle was with Jim Reed and they had a baby together, a boy they named Ed.. But Reed was a real sacface. Mean, selfish and cruel. He'd been wanted for robberies and talked about that "profession" for years and I think Belle just got used to the idea.

Her first robbery

She finally went with him on a robbery mission. The job involved robbing a Creek Indian reservation which received cash from the Federal Government and was kept in a small bank there.

Belle, Reed and another man rode up shortly after the cash was delivered, there was only one man there running the place. He refused to give them the money so they "cruelly tortured" him until he did. No explanation of what that meant but it must have been pretty severe.

When they got the cash they took off. The haul was a massive $30,000. In today's dollars that would be $664,000 but would go even farther back then so it was enough to retire on, if they invested it, which of course thieves never did.

It was rather shocking to me to see Belle take part in this, she was a kind and good person from all accounts, and now this? She must have been so disappointed with her life that she was desperate to change it and with a big haul like that she could have, assuming that she got an equal share but knowing her idiot husband she probably didn't.

They didn't stay together after the robbery because he already had the Law looking for him and this made things worse, so he headed for the hills and she stayed in nice hotels in Dallas for awhile. This was in 1873. The other man who was with them was caught and hanged by the famous Judge Parker, who was known as "The Hanging Judge."

About 5 months later her and Reed pulled off another robbery, this time holding up a stagecoach. They stopped the stage, took all the money from the passengers and took any valuables from the mail bags. Then they cut the horses loose and rode off. Apparently their stage didn't have a Shotgun Messenger guarding it like this Texas stage:

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The reward for this robbery was significant. The Governer of Texas put up $3,000, the Unied States Postal Service put up $3,000 and the stage line put up $1,000 so 7 grand back then was a big hunk of money!

How they got Reed

This is a great story. A deputy named Morris was working under cover and worked up a friendship with Reed. One day they were traveling on a country road, riding on horseback, when they came upon a farm house. They decided to stop and see if they could get the farmer to make them a meal. There was a lady there and she agreed to fix them a meal.

Oh, before they dismounted Morris had suggested they leave their pistols on their saddles so as not to alarm the people who lived there and Reed agreed to that. So when they were finishing up Morris said that he had "swallowed a fly" and needed to go outside "and relieve myself."

I don't even know what that meant. First of all, swallowing a fly didn't seem to make Reed suspicious so it must have been common to have alot of flies around the food! lol. And then I don't know why swallowing a fly would make you have to relieve yourself unless he was talking about something other than using the bathroom. Am I just being dense here? Probably, and someone will explain it to me.

Ok, so Morris knew about the reward money and he wanted it. He goes outside and gets his pistol from his saddle and goes back in and walks up to the table and tells Reed that he's being arrested for the stagecoach robbery.

Well, instead of surrendering Reed tips the table up on it's side, picking it up and rushes Morris with it. Morris grabs the table also and there they go at it like a couple of WWE wrestlers tugging back and forth all over the room. Reed keeps punching Morris in the face but Morris doesn't let go. The lady of the house is running around screaming at the top of her lungs.

Reed buys the farm

Finally Morris takes out his pistol and shoots Reed through the table. Reed dies. Morris borrows the farmer's wagon and takes it to Paris, about 15 miles away. This is in August with really hot temperatures. When he gets to Paris the body is identified and is set aside for some time for someone to claim, I'm not sure how long but it must have been a few days.

No one claims it. Belle didn't show up, perhaps she hadn't heard about it. They then get a driver to take it to what they call a Potters Field, it's where they bury unclaimed bodies. But the driver taking it to the cemetery got so sick because of the decomposing body that he dumped it off on the side of the road and went back to tell the Sheriff who went back out and took it the rest of the way. So there ended the pitiful like of the criminal Jim Reed.

This story and account is well documented and was written up in the Dallas Daily Herald, the Austin Weeky Democratic Statesman and the Galveston Daily News in August, 1874.
(No word on whether the lady was reimbursed for her table getting shot up.)

Belle is now free again at the age of 26. It takes Cole about 3 months for the news to reach him that Belle is free, and he talks about going back to Texas. That's going to be harder than ever with the Pinkertons trying to track him and all the other Lawmen watching for him. He'll have to wait but as soon as he can he'll go see her and Pearl who is 5 or 6 now.

Tomorrow we'll get back to how the bank robbing operation is going.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentlman redneck

ps- ya know....you might just be a redneck if:

Your wife has a beer belly and you find it attractive!