Rachel Wall (1760-1789) was born Rachel Schmidt in 1760 on a farm near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Around the age of 16 this blue eyed brunette took a trip to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of her grandfather, Joseph Kirsch. While wandering the docks in this comparatively large city, she met a shady gentleman by the name of George Wall. Against the wishes of her mother she married the man, and the two of them went to live in Boston, where Rachel took a job as a maid, and George found work as a fisherman.

Upon his very first voyage, George found some partying friends, and he and Rachel and these new pals partied away what little money they had. Left without money to pay the rent, our trouble hungry couple borrowed or stole a ship at Essex, and began a pirating career off the Isle of Shoals. They lured in passing ships by pretending to be in distress, but when their would-be rescuers arrived they found only death at the hands of the Walls and their unsavory crew. Once all valuables were removed to their own ship, the pirates would then sink the captured ships and all those aboard.

Their villainy came to an end in 1782, when George was washed away in a storm. Rachel herself was rescued and taken back to Boston, where her thieving ways continued on a smaller scale. She kept her hand in by creeping aboard ships docked in the harbor and raiding the cabins for theft worthy goods, and in this she was fairly successful. In 1789, however, she was captured, tried and convicted of highway robbery. On the stand she confessed to piracy, but claimed she had never killed anyone. Regardless, she was sentenced to death and hanged with two other criminals on October 8 of the same year.