Hi I’m the History Guy. I have a degree in history,
and I love history. And if you love history too this is the channel for you.
Our vision of the American Wild West is largely driven by film, and if you watched the movies and
TV shows of man in white hats, and men in black hats, you would think that the Wild West was a
wild and lawless place. Full of gunslingers and bandits. In reality the difficulty of
life in the Wild West was largely because it was the frontier, and people were trying to
carve a life out of wild land. It was largely a law-abiding and yet hardscrabble existence. But
there were real outlaws in the Wild West, and they were real people with real stories. And
perhaps no story of an outlaw in the Wild West, better reveals the human nature of the people
that were outlaws in the Wild West, than the extraordinary tale of the bandit, Dick Fellows.
Part of what makes Dick Fellows' story so interesting is that he did not start out
in life in a way that you might expect for an outlaw bandit. He was born George Lyttle,
in Clay County Kentucky likely in 1845 or 1846, and he was the son of a successful attorney and
court judge. He grew up with a wealthy and gentrified lifestyle. He was given a good
education. He was bright and studied for what promised to be a successful career as a lawyer
in Kentucky. His legal studies were interrupted by the US Civil War. He enlisted in the Confederate
Army in July of 1863, was captured by the Union in November of 1863, and in December was paroled on
the promise that he never again take up arms against the United States. He continued his
legal education and was admitted to the bar, and there with such a promising life in front of him,
he ran into the roadblock that would hobble him his entire life. George Lyttle was an
alcoholic. He drank away his career and his law practice, he ruined his reputation,
he embarrassed his family and his life in ruins, in 1867, he quietly left Kentucky.
Like many Americans of his time he went west, moving to the San Fernando Valley area of
California. He reinvented himself and changed his name to Dick Fellows but George Lyttlel or
Dick Fellows, he was still an alcoholic. He was unable to establish a successful law practice,
failed at several legitimate businesses, was still simply besotted by alcohol.
And finally destitute, he turned for income to stagecoach robbery.
His tactic for robbing stagecoaches was surprisingly simple. He would lay
in wait on a stagecoach route and when the stagecoach approached, he would step out,
a bandana over his face, brandish a pistol and ordered the driver to throw down the Express Box,
which usually included a few hundred dollars. It was a simple but surprisingly effective tactic
and yet one that required no insubstantial amount of luck to not get caught. And after
several successful robberies his luck ran out. He was recognized based on a wanted poster,
arrested and sent to San Quentin prison in 1870.
And then Dick Fellow started what would become a pattern in his life. In prison,
deprived of alcohol, he was a charming and well-educated fellow. He was contrite and
remorseful; he was a model prisoner. He taught other prisoners remedial
education. He was such a good prisoner that then California governor Newton
Booth pardoned him in 1874, having served just four years of an 8-year sentence.
Once again he tried to succeed in legitimate business, once again he
returned to alcoholism and his businesses failed. Once again in reduced circumstances
he resorted to stagecoach robbery. And this is where he built his most famous legend.
In 1875, by carefully watching the stage movements, he divined that a certain Wells
Fargo stage will be carrying an enormous amount of money that was going to be used for a bank
transaction. The astounding sum of $240,000. Planning his robbery he rented a horse,
and racing to the location where he planned to rob the stage, pushing the horse to run,
the horse through him and he was knocked unconscious for several hours.
And that is the life of Dick Fellows. He had, because he was so smart and so clever,
found the opportunity and planned what would have been the most lucrative stagecoach
robbery in the history of the nation, and he missed his chance, because he fell off
his horse. And thus began the legend of Dick Fellows, The Outlaw Who Couldn't Ride a Horse.
Not to be deterred, Fellows reasoned that the same stage would be returning back on
its route in about a week, and while it wouldn't have nearly as much money,
it also wouldn't have armed guards. And on the second try he successfully robbed that
same stage. But when the driver threw down the heavy strongbox and rode away,
Fellows realized that he had forgotten to bring along any tools that he could use to
open the strongbox. And when he tried to place the heavy strongbox on the horse that he had stolen,
so that he could rob the stagecoach, the horse bolted and ran away. So here was Dick Fellows,
in the pitch-black night, with a heavy strongbox knowing that a posse would be chasing him. And in
the dark, as he tried to get away, he fell in a hole, dropped the strongbox on his leg and broke
his leg. Well eventually he did manage to steal some tools that he could use to open the box
and to splint his leg. And he stole a horse on which he hoped to make his getaway with the not
insubstantial take of $1,800. But the problem was that the horse that he stole had been newly shod,
and the owner, having run out of horseshoes, had temporarily placed a mule shoe on one of the
horses feet. And so the horse left very unique and identifiable tracks that the posse could follow,
and once again Dick Fellows was caught, and sent to San Quentin prison. He actually managed a
brief escape while he was being transported to the prison but one more time, he was identified
because of a wanted poster, and he was sent to San Quentin, with a sentence of eight years.
Back in San Quentin, and once again deprived of alcohol, Dick Fellows again became a model
prisoner, who was contrite and remorseful and taught other prisoners remedial education,
and in this case studied and became proficient in Spanish. And once again,
he was such a model prisoner, that the new California Governor George Perkins
pardoned him in 1881, having served just five years of his eight-year sentence.
Again Dick Fellows tried to make a legitimate living, this time selling himself as a teacher
of the Spanish language, but again he turned to alcoholism and lost his business, and once more
turned to stagecoach robbery to pay the bills. He successfully robbed a number of stagecoaches
in the San Luis Obispo area of California, but one more time, he was identified from a
wanted poster and was sent back to prison. While being transported to prison he managed to escape,
not once, but twice. Both times by simply being so charming that he lulled his guards into a false
complacency and then running away. The second time he tried to steal a horse in order to escape,
and of course the horse threw him on the ground knocking him senseless and allowing
him to be captured. A fitting end for The Outlaw Who Could Not Ride a Horse. He was
sent to California's Folsom Prison, this time as a repeat offender with a life sentence.
Today Dick Fellows name is almost forgotten outside of a few small-town California historical
societies. And if he is known, it's for his incompetence, The Outlaw Who Couldn't Ride
a Horse. And both of those facts are really kind of unfair. He did successfully rob more
than a dozen stagecoaches and is suspected in many more stagecoach robberies. And he
managed some amazing and brazen escapes from law enforcement. In many ways, he was one of the most
successful outlaws in the Wild West. But much more compellingly, he was just a person that was very,
very human. He was intelligent, he was well-educated, by all accounts he sincerely
wanted to live a law-abiding life and yet was continually sabotaged by his addictions. And
that is a story that is more human, and in many ways much sadder, than the black hatted villains
that we tend to see in film and on television. Despite his life sentence Dick Fellows got one
more pardon by California Governor James Gillett, in 1908. It seems that his wealthy and influential
Kentucky family rediscovered and reconciled with him, and successfully petitioned the governor to
pardon him on the promise that he would return to Kentucky, where the family would guarantee
his good behavior. And it's there where that wily villain made maybe his last escape, because
there is no record that he ever returned to Kentucky. No proof that he ever lived there, and
no evidence that he died there. His ultimate fate is unknown, just another legend of the Wild West.
I'm the History Guy. I hope you enjoyed this addition to my series, five minutes of history,
short snippets a forgotten history five to ten minutes long. And if you did enjoy,
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