Black Bart (outlaw)

This article is about the American Old West outlaw. For the pirate, see Bartholomew Roberts. For other uses, see Black Bart (disambiguation).
Black Bart
Born Charles Earl Bowles
1829
Norfolk, England
Died after February 28, 1888(1888-02-28) (aged 58–59)
Nationality English
Other names Charles Earl Bowles, Charles Bolton, C.E. Bolton, Black Bart the Poet, Black Bart the PO8
Occupation stagecoach robber, prospector, soldier
Criminal penalty 6 years
Criminal status Time served
Spouse(s) Mary Elizabeth Johnson
Children 4
Conviction(s) Robbery

Charles Earl Bowles (b. 1829; d. after 1888), also known as Black Bart, was an English-born outlaw noted for the poetic messages he left behind after two of his robberies. Often called Charley by his friends, he was also known as Charles Bolton, C.E. Bolton and Black Bart the Poet.[1] Considered a gentleman bandit with a reputation for style and sophistication,[1] he was one of the most notorious stagecoach robbers to operate in and around Northern California and southern Oregon during the 1870s and 1880s.

Early life

Charles Bowles was born in Norfolk, England to John and Maria Bowles (sometimes spelled Bolles). He was the third of ten children, having six brothers and three sisters.[2] When he was two years old, his parents immigrated to Jefferson County, New York, where his father purchased a farm four miles north of Plessis Village in the direction of Alexandria Bay.

California Gold Rush

In late 1849, Bowles and his brothers David and James joined in the California Gold Rush, prospecting in the North Fork of the American River near Sacramento. They traveled home in 1852, but Bowles later returned with his brothers David and Robert. Both brothers fell ill shortly after their arrival and died. Charles Bowles remained in California for another two more years before giving up again.

In 1854, Bowles (who now used this spelling) married Mary Elizabeth Johnson. By 1860, they were living with their four children in Decatur, Illinois.

Civil War

On August 13, 1862, Bowles enlisted as a private in Company B, 116th Illinois Regiment (his name is spelled "Boles" in the company records). He was a good soldier and became a First sergeant within a year. Bowles was seriously wounded at the Battle of Vicksburg, and took part in Sherman's March to the Sea. He received brevet commissions as both second lieutenant and first lieutenant, and on June 7, 1865, was discharged with his regiment in Washington, D.C.. He returned home at last to his family in Illinois.

Prospecting again

In 1867, Bowles went prospecting for gold in Idaho and Montana. In a surviving letter to his wife from August 1871, he told her of an unpleasant encounter with some Wells, Fargo & Company agents and vowed to exact revenge. His wife never heard from him again, and in time she presumed he had died.

Criminal career

Bowles adopted the nickname "Black Bart" and proceeded to rob Wells Fargo stagecoaches at least 28 times across northern California between 1875 and 1883,[3] including a number of times along the historic Siskiyou Trail between California and Oregon. He only left two poems – at the fourth and fifth robbery sites – but this came to be considered his signature and ensured his fame. Black Bart was quite successful, often taking in thousands of dollars a year.

Ironically, Bowles was afraid of horses and made all of his robberies on foot. Together with his poems, this earned him notoriety. He supposedly never once fired a weapon during his years as an outlaw.[4]

Bowles was invariably polite and used no foul language, despite its appearance in his poems. He dressed in a long linen duster coat and a bowler hat, using a flour sack with holes cut for his eyes as a mask. He brandished a shotgun, but never used it. These features became his trademarks.

First robbery

On July 26, 1875, Bowles robbed his first stagecoach in Calaveras County, California, on the road between Copperopolis and Milton. He spoke with a deep and resonant tone as he politely ordered stage driver John Shine to "throw down the box". As Shine handed over the strongbox, Bowles shouted, "If he dares to shoot, give him a solid volley, boys". Seeing rifle barrels pointed at him from the nearby bushes, Shine quickly handed over the strongbox. Shine waited until Bowles vanished and then went to recover the empty strongbox, but upon examining the area, he discovered that the "men with rifles" were actually carefully rigged sticks. Black Bart's first robbery netted him $160.[3]

Last stagecoach robbery

His last holdup took place on November 3, 1883, at the site of his first robbery on Funk Hill, southeast of the present town of Copperopolis. Driven by Reason McConnell, the stage had crossed the Reynolds Ferry on the old road from Sonora to Milton. The driver stopped at the ferry to pick up Jimmy Rolleri, the 19-year-old son of the ferry owner. Rolleri had his rifle with him and got off at the bottom of the hill to hunt along the creek and meet the stage on the other side. When he arrived at the western end, he found that the stage was not there and began walking up the stage road. Near the summit, he saw the stage driver and his team of horses.

McConnell told him that as the stage had approached the summit, Bowles had stepped out from behind a rock with a shotgun in his hands. He forced McConnell to unhitch the team and take them over the crest of the hill. Bowles then tried to remove the strongbox from the stage, but it had been bolted to the floor and took Bowles some time to remove. Rolleri and McConnell went over the crest and saw Bowles backing out of the stage with the strong box. McConnell grabbed Rolleri's rifle and fired at Bowles twice but missed. Rolleri took the rifle and fired as Bowles entered a thicket. He stumbled as if he had been hit. Running to the thicket, they found a small, blood-stained bundle of mail he had dropped.

Bowles had been wounded in the hand. After running a quarter of a mile, he stopped and wrapped a handkerchief around his hand to control the bleeding. He found a rotten log and stuffed the sack with the gold amalgam into it, keeping $500 in gold coins. He hid the shotgun in a hollow tree, threw everything else away, and fled. In a manuscript written by stage driver McConnell about 20 years after the robbery, he claimed he fired all four shots at Bowles. The first missed, but he thought the second or third shot hit Bowles, and was sure the fourth did. Bowles only had the one wound to his hand.

Investigation and arrest

When Bowles was wounded and forced to flee, he left behind several personal items. These included his eyeglasses, some food, and a handkerchief with a laundry mark F.X.O.7. Wells Fargo Detective James B. Hume found these at the scene. Hume and detective Harry N. Morse contacted every laundry in San Francisco about the laundry mark. After visiting nearly 90 laundries, they finally traced it to Ferguson & Bigg's California Laundry on Bush Street and were able to learn that the handkerchief belonged to a man who lived in a modest boarding house.

The detectives learned that Bowles called himself a mining engineer and made frequent "business trips" that coincided with the Wells Fargo robberies. After initially denying he was Black Bart, Bowles eventually admitted he had robbed several Wells Fargo stages, though he confessed only to crimes committed before 1879. Bowles apparently believed the statute of limitations had expired on those robberies. When booked, he gave his name as T. Z. Spalding, but police found a Bible, a gift from his wife, inscribed with his real name.

The police report said that Bowles was "a person of great endurance. Exhibited genuine wit under most trying circumstances, and was extremely proper and polite in behavior. Eschews profanity."

Conviction and imprisonment

Wells Fargo only pressed charges on the final robbery. Bowles was convicted and sentenced to six years in San Quentin Prison, but he was released after four years for good behavior, in January 1888. His health had clearly deteriorated due to his time in prison; he had visibly aged, his eyesight was failing, and he had gone deaf in one ear. Reporters swarmed around him when he was released and asked if he was going to rob any more stagecoaches. "No, gentlemen," he replied, smiling, "I'm through with crime." Another reporter asked if he would write more poetry. Bowles laughed and said, "Now, didn't you hear me say that I am through with crime?"

Final days

Bowles never returned to his wife after his release from prison, though he did write to her. In one of the letters he said he was tired of being shadowed by Wells Fargo, felt demoralized, and wanted to get away from everybody. In February 1888, Bowles left the Nevada House and vanished. Hume said Wells Fargo tracked him to the Visalia House hotel in Visalia.[5] The hotel owner said a man answering the description of Bowles had checked in and then disappeared. Black Bart was last seen on February 28, 1888.

Copycat robber

On November 14, 1888, another Wells Fargo stage was robbed by a masked highwayman. The lone bandit left a verse that read:

So here I've stood while wind and rain
Have set the trees a-sobbin,
And risked my life for that box,
That wasn't worth the robbin.

Detective Hume was called to examine the note. After comparing it with the handwriting of genuine Black Bart poetry, he declared the new holdup was the work of a copycat criminal.

Rumors and theories

There are rumors that Wells Fargo had paid off the aging bandit and sent him away to keep him from robbing their stages, though Wells Fargo denied this.

Some believe that Bowles moved to New York City and lived quietly for the rest of his life, dying there in 1917, though this was never confirmed. Others believe the unlikely tale that the former poet bandit with failing eyesight had gone to the wilds of Montana or perhaps Nevada for another try at making a fortune.

Verses

Bowles, like many of his contemporaries, read dime novel–style serial adventure stories which appeared in local newspapers. In the early 1870s, the Sacramento Union ran a story called The Case of Summerfield by Caxton (a pseudonym of William Henry Rhodes). In the story, the villain dressed in black and had long unruly black hair, a large black beard, and wild grey eyes. The villain, named Black Bart, robbed Wells Fargo stagecoaches and brought great fear to those who were unlucky enough to cross him. Bowles may have read the Sacramento Union story. He told a Wells Fargo detective that the name popped into his head when he was writing the first poem, and he used it.

Bowles left only two authenticated verses. The first was at the scene of the August 3, 1877, holdup of a stage traveling from Point Arena to Duncans Mills, California:

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.

— Black Bart, 1877[3]

The second verse was left at the site of his July 25, 1878, holdup of a stage traveling from Quincy to Oroville, California:

Here I lay me down to sleep
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat,
And everlasting sorrow.
Let come what will, I'll try it on,
My condition can't be worse;
And if there's money in that box
'Tis munny in my purse.

— Black Bart[4]

List of crimes

1870s

1880s

In popular culture

References

  1. 1 2 Hoeper, George (June 1, 1995). Black Bart: Boulevardier Bandit: The Saga of California's Most Mysterious Stagecoach Robber and the Men Who Sought to Capture Him. Quill Driver Books. ISBN 978-1-884995-05-7. Retrieved July 25, 2011.
  2. ↑ Frederick Nolan, The Wild ,: History, Myth & the Making of America (London: Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2003), p. 133.
  3. 1 2 3 Frederick Nolan, The Wild West: History, Myth & the Making of America (London: Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2003), p. 130.
  4. 1 2 Frederick Nolan, The Wild West: History, Myth & the Making of America (London: Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2003), p. 131.
  5. ↑ http://www.visalialifestyle.com/visalia-house-a-bygone-relic-of-a-frontier-town/
  6. ↑ "Black Bart in Mendocino County"

External links

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