Rachel Wall (1760-1789)
Female Pirate
Rachel Schmidt was born the daughter of a rural farmer in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1760. At the age of sixteen, seeking a way out of her rural setting, Rachel married a small time thief and con-man, George Wall. The seemingly normal couple moved to Boston where George took a job as a fisherman while Rachel became a maid for a wealthy Boston family. Within a year of their arrival, the couple fell in with some of Boston’s most notorious characters. A plan was hatched to steal a ship and sail away to a life of piracy. They began to work along the islands of the northeast by luring ships to the shoals, murdering the crew and removing the ships’ cargo.
George was lost at sea in 1782. Rachel returned to Boston where she became a successful thief and pickpocket. By 1789 Rachel had graduated to climbing aboard ships in the harbor and plundering the passenger’s and Captain’s cabins of valuables. She was captured and her identity as a thief and pirate were discovered. Rachel was tried and convicted for highway robbery and piracy. Rachel Schmidt Wall was hanged in Boston on October 8, 1789.