﻿Welcome back to Bad Things in History, where not all criminals, and not all history channels, are
like the others. Some of us are just better. Having an unpleasant experience with a bank is
an unfortunate and common experience. For those victimized by these institutions,
there is usually nothing to be done. It is an insult that must be endured.
In the 1870s one man decided to do something about it.
Wells Fargo took his land, and he spent the next decade taking their money at gunpoint.
Today we are going to tell you the story of a well-mannered outlaw who stole without
killing anyone and left behind poetry for those who wanted to capture him.
—-------------- California Gold Rush
California was an international attraction long before Hollywood existed.
Gold was first discovered in California on March 9th, 1842 in mountains near modern
day Los Angeles. Although some of it was extracted from mines and sold,
the secret of the gold remained a secret guarded by the few people who knew about it.
All of that changed within a few years. Originally California belonged to Mexico.
The United States and Mexico entered into conflict in 1846.
When the war ended in 1848, California became part of the United States. And so did all its gold.
John Sutter was an immigrant who was originally from Switzerland. He was born there on February
23rd, 1803 but migrated to California as a young man. In 1839 he established a fort
in what would one day become Sacramento. Sutter hired a carpenter named James W. Marshall
then asked him to build a mill. On January 24th, 1848 James found gold at the construction
site. He took the discovery to Sutter, who then reported it to the United States military.
The officer in charge had a drinking problem. And when he started drinking,
he also had a problem keeping his mouth shut. So by the end of the year the world
knew that the mountains of Northern California were full of riches.
In 1848 the city of San Francisco only had one thousand inhabitants. As immigrants
poured into the small settlement, the population grew quickly. By 1850 the
city had twenty-five thousand residents. Getting to California was not a simple task.
People who started from the East Coast of the United States had three options to get there.
First, they could take a ship which would travel around the tip of South America
then turn north to the California coast. This journey took up to six months to complete.
For those willing to suffer through tropical diseases, there was a shorter path.
A ship could take passengers to Panama. Then they would spend a week traveling
over land until reaching the Pacific Ocean. From there another ship would carry them north.
For those that didn’t want to risk dying in the ocean or a jungle, it was possible
to take the California Trail. This was a 1,600-mile route that covered some of the
most hazardous terrain in North America. Nearly 90,000 people arrived in California
during 1849. Of those, nearly 30,000 were from other countries. They began digging
into the mountains hoping to extract riches. By 1850 most of the easily accessible gold was
mined, but that didn’t stop swarms of migrants from trying to get rich. By the time the gold
rush came to an end in 1855, it had attracted over 300,000 new residents to California.
The merchants and banks that emerged near the mining areas found that the gold rush was very
profitable. But most of the people who arrived hoping to find wealth instead lost everything.
The man who would one day become known as Black Bart was one of them. Eventually he
would be driven to seek revenge against those who profited from his misfortune.
Birth of An Outlaw Charles E. Boles was born in Norfolk, England
in 1829. When he was just two years old, his family boarded a ship and traveled to New York.
After arriving, they began living and working on a farm a few miles north of Plessis Village.
When he was around twenty years old, Charles heard about the California Gold Rush.
Instead of working on a farm day after day for the rest of his life, he decided to grab
his cousin and go to California. In 1850 they entered the mountains
near Sacramento and began looking for gold. The pair failed to find anything,
and in 1852 they returned home defeated. But it was too late for Charles to adjust to the
life of a farmer. He decided to return to the gold fields of California just a few months later.
This time he took his cousin as well as his younger brother. Unfortunately,
both died from illness soon after arriving in California. Charles couldn’t do all the work
in the mine himself, and he still hadn’t found gold. So he gave up and went back home again.
In 1854 he married and moved to a farm in Decatur, Illinois. Charles and his wife had
four children. It appears the domestic life of a farmer was finally enough for him. But in 1861
the United States erupted into Civil War. Charles volunteered to join the Union Army in
1862. He served with bravery and was respected by officers and the troops he commanded.
Charles was wounded in the Battle of Vicksburg where he served under General Ulysses S. Grant.
He also participated in William Sherman’s March to The Sea which captured the state of Georgia.
On June 7th, 1865 Charles Boles was dismissed from the Union Army. He
returned to his farm in Illinois. But before long, the idea of finding gold
would again become too tempting to ignore. Charles traveled to Montana with a friend.
After arriving they found a small mine and began extracting precious metals from it.
It didn’t take long for other people to realize that the mine was valuable.
One day Charles was approached by representatives from the Wells Fargo bank. They wanted to purchase
the land around his mine and made an offer on the property. Charles didn’t want to sell
and refused to give up the mining operation. Wells Fargo dealt with this by redirecting nearby
streams. Without a water supply, Charles could no longer work in his mine. He also couldn’t sell the
property because it was now worthless. His anger at Wells Fargo was frequently
expressed in letters that Charles sent back home to his wife. He swore to take revenge
on the bank and make them pay. The last letter received from Charles was
on August 25th, 1871. Several months after the letters stopped, rumors began circulating that
Native Americans killed a group of travelers. It was assumed that Charles was among them.
In a few years the country would learn that he was very much alive. And Charles
desperately wanted retribution against the bank that took everything from him.
The Gentleman Bandit Wells Fargo, much like Charles Boles,
was a creation of the California Gold Rush. Henry Wells and William G. Fargo established
Wells Fargo & Company in 1852. The company took gold produced by the mines and transported it
safely to the US Mint in Philadelphia. As the gold rush came to an end, the Wells Fargo
bank continued expanding its operations. By 1870 Wells Fargo was responsible for delivering gold,
supplies, and mail throughout much of the western territories.
Charles knew all about these routes, and he planned to profit from them.
On July 26th, 1875 a Wells Fargo stagecoach traveled through Calaveras County, California.
A man jumped out from behind a boulder. He had a flour sack on his head with holes cut out for
the eyes. He pointed a shotgun at the stagecoach driver and told him to hand over the valuables.
When the driver hesitated the anonymous bandit said,
If he dares to shoot, give him the solid volley, boys.
The driver looked around and saw gun barrels pointing at him from the bushes.
He then gave the waiting criminal all the valuables. One of the stagecoach
passengers was a woman who also tried to give her possessions to the robber. But he refused
to take anything from her, saying the only thing he wanted was what Wells Fargo had to offer.
After the robbery was over, the stagecoach driver checked the nearby bushes. The rifles
he saw pointed at him were actually just sticks. The stagecoach was robbed by a single person.
The same strategy would be used again successfully two more times. But during the
fourth robbery, the Wells Fargo robber would demonstrate some additional creativity.
On August 3rd, 1877 he stopped a stagecoach near Duncans Mills, California. He wore the
same outfit as the previous robberies. But after taking the bank’s cash, he left a note behind
which contained the following poem: I’ve labored long and hard for bread
For honor and for riches But on my corns too long you’ve tread
You fine-haired sons of bitches. It was signed Black Bart.
It was almost a year before he struck again. On July 25th, 1878 Black Bart robbed another
stagecoach. This time he left a longer version of the poem for his pursuers:
Here I lay me down to sleep To await the coming morrow
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat And everlasting sorrow
I’ve labored long and hard for bread For honor and for riches
But on my corns too long you’ve tread You fine-haired sons of bitches.
Let come what will, I’ll try it on My condition can’t be worse
And if there’s money in that box ‘Tis money in my purse.
There would be no more poems. But the bandit would continue to randomly rob Wells Fargo
stagecoaches for the next five years. And he would do it without killing anyone.
On November 3rd, 1883 Black Bart tried to rob yet another stagecoach. What he didn’t know is that
one of the passengers jumped off to go hunting a few minutes earlier. The passenger saw Black Bart
counting money and started shooting at him. The bandit took off running.
One of the rifle rounds hit him in the hand, which caused him to drop a handkerchief.
Investigators later determined that the item came from a laundry in San Francisco.
Detectives discovered that Black Bart was actually Charles Boles. On November 16th,
1883 he was arrested. The End of Crime
During the trial of Charles Boles, it was discovered that although he robbed stagecoaches,
he was very polite while doing it. And in the process, he tried to contribute to charity.
A local California newspaper reported: Black Bart, Shasta County’s notorious highwayman,
asks all the people he stops to contribute to an orphan asylum. And, there is something
so forbidding in his appearance that all the travelers shell out without asking where the
asylum is, or how much it needs. The rascal is described as being very ‘gentlemanly,’
never forgetting to raise his hat to the ladies, and seldom asking them for donations.
One stagecoach driver named Dan Shealy was robbed by Charles twice. He
described how well-mannered the robber was. Bart was dressed in a long linen duster and had
a flour bag over his head. Said he’d taken a fancy to my gun last trip, and I let him have
it. But darned if he didn’t shove a $50 bill onto the box to pay me when he’d gotten through. …
Black Bart then left a poem behind for the man whose gun he purchased:
Daniel, it grieves me to say it, Next time you attempt to play it,
Buy an overcoat of pine, And I’ll send the corpse in time.’
Charles Boles was found guilty and sent to San Quentin prison for six years. However,
he was a model prisoner and was released for good behavior after only four years.
When he exited the prison on January 1st, 1888 Charles was swarmed by reporters.
They asked him if he planned to rob any more stagecoaches. Charles laughed and said,
No, gentlemen, I’m through with crime. Nobody is sure what happened to Charles
after he left prison. There were several rumors about his fate.
One story claimed that during his years in jail, Charles learned chemistry. Then he went to work
for a druggist. He eventually died in New York in 1917 at the age of eighty-eight.
Another set of rumors claimed that Charles returned to the mines and spent
the rest of his days digging for gold. Other people claimed that he returned to
robbing stagecoaches. Charles only agreed to stop when Wells Fargo offered to pay him a pension.
Wells Fargo claimed this was not true. Whatever happened to Charles, he never
returned home to his wife, nor did he return to prison. But he did leave behind a unique
legacy of vengeance. —------------------
Do you think Charles Boles was a criminal that deserved to go
to prison? Or was he a hero for finding a way to take from the wealthy without
hurting anyone? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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