This Day in History: Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier became the first person executed by guillotine on this day in 1792. A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed on horseback as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads. Such criminals operated until the mid or late 19th century. Highwaywomen, such as Katherine Ferrers, were said to also exist, often dressing as men, especially in fiction. However, there was one Highwayman, Tom Rowland, that dressed as a woman. Rowland even rode side-saddle and managed to get away with his crimes for 18 years, until he was caught and hanged.
The first appearance of the word highwayman is from 1617, however, terms such as "knights of the road" and "gentlemen of the road" were sometimes used by people interested in romanticizing (like Robin Hood) what was often an especially violent form of stealing. In the 19th-century American West, highwaymen were sometimes known as road agents. In Australia, they were known as bushrangers.
Highwaymen were often romanticized in Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls, especially Dick Turpin. The 1906 poem "The Highwayman" is considered to be "the best ballad poem in existence for oral delivery".
It starts out as:
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor.
And the highwayman came riding --
Riding - riding-
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door
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