The Stage Bandits Tracked Down

The stage had gone on down the road, and Pearl Hart and Joe Boot were leaving on foot. They had the passengers’ money, a gold watch, and the guns taken during the holdup. Now they had to get away with them.

Meanwhile, the people they had robbed were making their way toward help. At Riverside, passenger O. J. Neil got off the stage. The coach continued to Florence, where Sheriff W. C. Truman learned what had happened. He headed for Riverside, and the search began.

People there remembered two strangers in town that day. Their descriptions gave Truman something to work with, although some of the details would look rather doubtful once the prisoners were caught.

The passengers had suspected that the smaller robber, dressed in men’s clothing, was a woman. That much turned out to be right. The reported height, hair color, and eye color were another matter.

But first, Truman had to find them.

The trail toward Benson

The Arizona Republic’s June 6 account said the pair wandered around Riverside after the robbery, resting in the brush during the day. A deputy and a Mexican guide picked up their trail, and Truman’s party followed it toward Benson.

The paper’s June 5 report said the posse had little trouble keeping on their tracks. Eventually, the search brought the officers to a schoolhouse near Benson.

According to that account, Hart and Boot were inside. The posse could have tried to take them there, but the officers preferred to catch them in the open. So they waited.

When the pair left the schoolhouse, they walked several hundred yards into the brush, lay down with their guns beside them, and went to sleep.

That gave the officers their chance. The June 5 report said they moved in, took the guns, and then woke the sleepers.

It was Saturday afternoon, June 3. Their time on the run was over.

What happened when they woke up

Here the newspaper accounts go in different directions.

On June 5, the Republic said Pearl sprang up fighting and Boot offered no resistance. It described her scolding him for his lack of nerve and declaring that, if the posse had approached while she was awake, she would have fired on them.

A day later, the same newspaper reported almost the reverse. Boot wanted to fight, it said, while Pearl talked him into giving up rather than taking on a party that outnumbered them.

We have both versions, but these clippings don’t give us enough to settle which one was right. The capture itself is clear. Who wanted to fight, and who wanted to surrender, is not.

The officers also recovered property from the robbery. The June 5 report put approximately $400 in Pearl’s possession, along with the gold watch belonging to the passenger named Neil in the first account and Nell in the later one. The stolen guns had been divided between the pair.

The money figures don’t quite agree either. The first report estimated about $350 stolen from the passengers. The capture story said about $400. For now, those remain the newspaper’s estimates.

On the way to Florence

Truman’s party took the prisoners to Benson. From there, they went to Casa Grande and then overland to Florence.

Along the way, Pearl began telling her side of the story.

As the Republic reported it on June 5, she said she had been living in Globe with a man who had once been a musician in Phoenix. She claimed he had taken all her savings. Then a telegram arrived from her mother in Toledo, Ohio, saying she was sick, needed help, and wanted Pearl to come to her.

Pearl said she needed money right away. She decided to rob a stage and approached the man who became her partner. In her telling, he wanted quick money too and readily agreed.

That was Pearl’s explanation as the newspaper gave it just after her arrest. The reports don’t verify the telegram or the missing savings. Her reason for robbing the stage rests on her own account.

By Sunday morning, June 4, Truman had brought the prisoners to Florence. Both were placed in the county jail.

The Florence correspondent described Pearl in overalls and boots and identified her companion as Joe Boot. Neither seemed especially discouraged, the report said.

For people reading the newspapers, the mysterious woman from the stage holdup now had a name. But putting a name to her didn’t make all the earlier details fall into place.

The woman described after the robbery was supposed to be about five feet seven inches tall, with long dark hair and black eyes. The June 5 account described Pearl as little more than five feet tall, with very light hair and blue eyes. The passengers’ suspicion that one robber was a woman had been sound; the description printed afterward was much less dependable.

The paper also brought up allegations about her earlier life in Phoenix and had some unflattering things to say about Boot’s appearance. Neither helps us follow the pursuit. What matters here is that Truman had his prisoners and had recovered money, a watch, and weapons tied to the holdup.

A few days earlier, Hart and Boot had been walking away from the stage with the stolen property. Now they were in the Florence jail, facing what came next.

Sources and research notes

Arizona Republic, May 31, 1899, page 4, “A Female Bandit.”

Arizona Republic, June 5, 1899, page 4, “The Woman Bandit.”

Arizona Republic, June 6, 1899, page 4, “The News of Florence.”

Robbery date: The supplied reports point to Monday, May 29, 1899. This differs from the May 30 date previously used in our material. The draft avoids assigning an exact robbery date until that discrepancy is checked against other contemporary evidence.

Capture accounts: The June 5 report says Hart resisted and Boot did not. The June 6 account says Boot wanted to fight and Hart persuaded him to surrender. These are conflicting reports from the same newspaper, not independent corroboration.

Money and spelling: The first report estimates about $350 stolen; the capture report gives approximately $400 in Hart’s possession. The passenger’s surname is printed as Neil on May 31 and Nell on June 5.

Pearl’s explanation: The account about her savings and her mother’s telegram is attributed to Hart in the June 5 report. It has not been independently established by the supplied clippings.