Description

History

Historical back ground: Virginia Hill was born Feb. 5, 1848
> in the town of Carthage, Mo. Attended the Carthage Female
> Academy, where she excelled in reading, spelling, grammar,
> arithmetic, deportment, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and
> music-learning to play the piano.
>
> Father John Hill was a wealthy Carthage innkeeper, mother
> Elizabeth "Eliza" Hatfield Hill was descended from
> the Hatfield end of the infamous Hatfield and McCoy family
> feud in the West Virginia-Kentucky region. Virginia
> moved with her family to Sycene, Texas shortly before
> Carthage was burned to the ground by
> Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War in 1864. That
> same year her older brother John "Bud" Hill. who
> fought for the Confederacy with William C. Quintilla
> guerrillas, was killed by Union troops in Sarcoxie, Mo.
>
> Virginia Hill was as heard about as much as those she often
> rode with like Jesse James and the Younger brothers, she
> reached a level of fantastic notoriety that today leaves the
> facts of her life not always distinguishable from the
> fiction.
>
> As a teenager during the Civil War, Virginia Hill reported
> the positions of Union troops to Confederacy. One of
> her childhood friends in Missouri was Cole Younger, who
> served in Quintilla guerrillas with Jesse and Frank James.
> After the war these men (and later Cole's three
> brothers, among others) turned to outlawry, primarily that
> of robbery of banks, trains, stagecoaches, and people.
>
> In their flights from lawmen they would sometimes hide out
> at the Hill farm, through
> which Virginia became very tight with the James and
> Younger gangs. Their influence would be part of the reason
> Virginia would turn to crime herself.
>
> She spent her time in saloons drinking and gambling at
> dice, cards, and roulette. At times she would ride her horse
> through the streets shooting off her pistols. This
> wild behavior was among what gave rise to her rather
> exaggerated image as a pistol-wielding gunslinger.