On This Day in Herstory, November 15th 1720, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, two pirates, were captured and brought to Spanish Town, Jamaica for trial.
Anne Bonny was born Anne Cormac c.1698, near Cork, Ireland; she is thought to be the illegitimate daughter of an Irish lawyer, and one of the maids who worked in his house. When her father’s wife found out about his affair he took Bonny and her mother, and the family emigrated to Charles Towne, South Carolina. When she was 13 her mother died, and shortly thereafter her father betrothed her to a local man, which she heavily opposed. In an act of rebellion in 1718 she ran off and married a sailor, called John Bonny, and the couple moved to the island of New Providence in the Bahamas, where her husband acted as an informant for the governor of the Bahamas. Bonny was less than thrilled by her new husband, and she became involved with pirate John “Calico Jack” Rackham, Calico Jack offered Bonny’s husband money for a divorce, but he refused.
In August 1720 Bonny abandoned her husband and helped Calico Jack in commandeering a ship, and along with a crew of a dozen people the pair began pirating merchant ships along the coast of Jamaica. Bonny’s presence aboard the ship was unusual, as many people thought women on board brought bad luck; but she was fierce, one story said that in her youth she beat an attempted rapist so badly he was hospitalized. Bonny made no attempt to conceal her gender from her shipmates, but when pillaging she disguised herself as a man and participated in armed combat. At some point, it’s not known when, another pirate, called Mary Read joined Calico Jack and Bonny’s crew.
Mary Read was born c.1695 in England, and relatively little is known about their early life. Read’s mother was married to a sailor, and together they had a son; the sailor deserted the family and Read’s mother had an affair that resulted in Read’s birth. Not long after, Read’s half-brother Mark died, and their mother decided to pass Read off as Mark to continue to receive money from his paternal grandmother; and so from then, Read was known as Mark Read. When they were 13 the grandmother died, but they continued to live as Mark, and eventually joined the military. While in the military they met another soldier, and after revealing their sex to him they married, the couple moved to the Netherlands and opened an inn, but their husband quickly died. Following this, she went back to living as Mark, and found work as a sailor, and when the ship was seized by pirates they decided to become a buccaneer. In 1717 they sailed to the Bahamas, and at some point thereafter joined Calico Jack and Bonny, as a member of their crew. Read continued to live as Mark, though the crew soon realized their sex, and so they lived as Mary on-board the ship.
Together Bonny and Read earned a reputation for ruthlessness, and were described as “very profligate, cursing and swearing much, and very ready and willing to do anything on board.” In September 1720 the governor of the Bahamas declared the pirate crew, and Bonny and Read specifically, as “Enemies to the Crown of Great Britain.” On November 15th 1720, law enforcement caught up to them at Negril Point, Jamaica. The entire crew except for Bonny and Read were drunk, entirely useless, and couldn’t help fight; so Bonny and Read fought until they were finally overwhelmed, and Calico Jack surrendered. The crew were captured and brought to Spanish Town, Jamaica for trial; Calico Jack and all other men from the crew were immediately found guilty and hung. On November 28th Bonny and Read were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death; however, it was discovered that they were both pregnant, and this caused their executions to be postponed. In April 1721 Read died in prison after developing a fever, and was buried on April 28th 1721. Bonny, however, was released (probably due to her father’s influence) she returned to Charles Towne, she got married, had children, and died c.April 25th 1782, she was 84.
On This Day in Herstory, November 11th 1886, Alice Huyler Ramsey, the first woman to drive across the United States from coast to coast, was born in New Barbadoes Township, New Jersey.
Alice, born Alice Taylor Huyer, was the daughter of John Edwin Huyler, a lumber dealer, and Ada Mumford Farr. From 1903 to 1905 she attended Vassar College. In January 1906, she married John R. Ramsey, a congressman 24 years her senior, in Hackensack, New Jersey. Together the couple had two children. In 1908 John bought Alice a new Maxwell Runabout. That summer she drover more than 6,000 miles around the New England area. In September 1908, the same year she receiver her car, she drove one of the three Maxwells that were entered in that year’s American Automobile Association’s (AAA) Montauk Point endurance race. She was one of only two women to participate in the event. It was at the event that it was first proposed that Alice attempt a transcontinental journey by car, a fete never before accomplished by a woman. It was arranged that she would have the backing of Maxwell-Briscoe, who supplied her with a 1909 tour car and as many parts as she needed. This drive was originally organised as a publicity stunt for Maxwell-Briscoe, who marketed their cars specifically at women; who at the time were not often encouraged to drive.
On June 9th 1909, at only 22 years old, Alice set off on a 3,800 mile car journey; she was accompanied by two of her sisters-in-law and one of her friends, none of whom knew how to drive. The women started from Hell Gate in Manhattan, New York, in a green, four-cylinder, 30-horsepower Maxwell DA. The trip took 59 days, and on August 7th they arrived in San Francisco, California to much fanfare, though the arrived about three weeks later than had originally been planned. The women navigated the entire journey themselves using a few maps, but mostly using telephone poles, following the poles with more wires with the hope it would lead to a town. Only 152 miles of the 3,800 mile trip was on paved road, which lead to several problems. Over the course of the trip Alice had to change 11 tires, clean all the spark plugs several times, repair a broken brake pedal, and sleep in the car whenever it got too stuck in the mud. Additionally, on their journey the women crossed the trail of a manhunt looking for a murderer in Nebraska, got bed bugs, and at one point found themselves driving in the middle of a Native American hunting party.
Alice loved the adventure so much that between 1909 and 1975 she drove across the country over 30 times. In 1960 she was named the “Woman Motorist of the Century” by AAA, and in 1961 she wrote and published the story of her first trip, Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron. Alice went on to lead a very full life, when her husband died in 1933 she lived with Anna Graham Harris in New Jersey and later California until Anna’s death in 1953. Alice then lived with Elizabeth Elliott from 1968 until September 10th 1983, when Alice Huyler Ramsey died in Covina, California. On October 17th 2000, Alice became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.
