01/06/2022
Born in Carlisle Pennsylvania, Circa 1760, Rachel Schmidt left home at the age of 16 and met her first husband, a fisherman named George Wall. They travelled together eventually settling in Boston.
After George left her, Rachel took a job as a domestic servant, finding herself “quote content”. George returned and convinced her to join him in a life of piracy and the resulting life-story gets incredibly exciting.
Together they stole “Essex”, which they used to great success, to lure other vessels into a trap. Their method of deception involved cruising the New Hampshire coast and disguising Essex as a damaged ship. They would and signal to other ships that they required aid. Once the other vessels had docked alongside her, Rachel George and their crew would launch a surprise attack on the crew of the other vessel and rob them.
It is accounted that they successfully boarded 12 ships and killed as many as 24 men before 1782. When Essex was caught in a storm and wrecked, George and several of the crew drowned. Rachel took to sneaking aboard ships that had docked in the harbour at night and robbing their crews as they slept.
In her confessions, she admits, “Sometime in the spring of 1787, not being able to ascertain the exact time, I happened to go on board a ship, lying at the Long-Wharf, in Boston;—the Captain's name I cannot recollect, but think he was a Frenchman: On my entering the cabin, the door of which not being fastened, and finding the Captain and Mate asleep in their beds, I hunted about for plunder, and discovered, under the Captain's head, a black silk handkerchief containing upwards of thirty pounds, in gold, crowns, and small change, on which I immediately seized the b***y and decamped therewith as quick as possible.”
In 1787, Rachel was accused of stealing some clothes from a 17 year old, arrested and stood trail. Denying the accusations but admitting to several acts of piracy. Despite this, the charges for highway robbery where held and she was sentenced to death.
On Thursday October 8th 1789, on Boston Common, infront of a crowd of thousands, Rachel Wall was hanged.
Quite a character this one
