Rachel Schmidt (ca. 1760–1789) may have had a biblical given name, but she was an unholy terror. Said
to be the first female American pirate, she took part in the murders of some two dozen sailors in the
early 1780s. Born on a farm near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Schmidt chafed under the discipline of her
devout Presbyterian parents. She escaped by eloping with a veteran of the Revolutionary War, an iffy
sort named George Wall. The couple settled in Boston, where Rachel found work as a maid while George
went to sea on a fishing schooner. In 1781, George Wall came up with a devilish scheme that involved
his wife and five of his friends. The gang pretended to be fishermen whose vessel had been disabled by a
storm. Rachel’s job was to play the damsel in distress, calling out to any passing ship for help. When a
rescuer came near, the pirates swarmed aboard, killing the crew, seizing their cargo, and sinking their
ship. George Wall drowned at sea in 1782, leaving Rachel to continue her life of crime in Boston. In
1789, she was arrested for robbing a young woman. Confessing to acts of piracy, she made her final
appearance at the end of a rope, the last woman to be hanged in Massachusetts.
