July, 1875: From the small mining town of Copperopolis, CA near Yosemite, a Wells Fargo stagecoach with ten passengers embarked toward San Francisco. Four miles outside of town, a man in a longcoat stood in the rutted trail. On his head he wore a burlap sack with holes to see through. He aimed a shotgun at the coach driver and politely asked him to hand over the wagon’s strongbox. The stranger called out to his confederates hiding nearby, and the driver spotted several rifle barrels trained on him. The driver obeyed. Out of fear, a female passenger offered her coin purse as well. The robber handed back her purse, stating that he only wanted Wells Fargo’s money. The polite thief then collected the box and asked the coachman to drive on. No shots were fired. Only when he got a good distance away did the driver see that the rifles hidden in the brush were nothing but sticks. The robber had acted alone.
So began the legend of Black Bart.
He committed 28 similar highway robberies in the span of eight years. All of them involved Wells Fargo wagons.
All of the crimes took place in remote areas far, far away from any cities, usually on mountain roadways with hazardous curves that forced the drivers to slow their horses. The planning was always careful; no evidence left behind, no giving away his true identity.
In the mythology of the Wild West, bank robbers and thieves ran amok in every town. In truth, bandits were rare. Some men, like Jesse James and Butch Cassidy, became well-known because they were so uncommon.
Four things made Black Bart stand out: He was extremely polite, never stole from passengers, never fired a shot, and after two robberies he left behind poems.
His first and most famous 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. Black Bart, the Po8.”
During his eight-year crime spree he stole upwards of $18,000, the modern equivalent of roughly half a million dollars.
Most of the coach drivers he robbed obeyed his polite commands to surrender their loot, and he was shot at only one time. A bullet grazed his head to leave a permanent scar. Black Bart, however, did not return fire and got away.
His real name was Charles Boles, aka Charley Bolton.
While most lawbreakers of the Wild West were young men, Boles began his life of crime after the age of 50. Beneath the sack that disguised his face was a wizened man with thin white hair and a bushy white mustache.
He lived in San Francisco, not in the remote regions of Northern California where he committed his crimes. He dressed in dapper attire and carried a walking stick.
No one suspected the older city-dwelling gentleman was an infamous stagecoach robber.
Born in England and raised in New York State, Boles made his way west to join the 1849 Gold Rush. After failures and personal tragedies, he moved to Missouri, married, and had children.
He joined the Union Army and fought in one of the last Civil War battles when Sherman attacked Atlanta.
After the war, he left his family to mine for gold in Montana. Wells Fargo men forced him to abandon his mine, though, which embittered him.
1883: He changed his name to Charley Bolton and settled in San Francisco. Shortly thereafter, he began robbing stagecoaches as Black Bart.
With his ill-gotten gains, Boles invested in small businesses and enjoyed the high life: the best restaurants, hotels, and tailors. When asked, he said he owned mines.
Meanwhile, his wife hadn’t seen or heard from him in years and presumed him dead.
His last holdup took place in the same location as his first at Copperopolis, CA. One fateful mistake: He accidentally left behind a handkerchief bearing a laundry mark.
Wells Fargo detectives visited every launderer in San Francisco and found a match. The handkerchief belonged to Charles Bolton.
They lured him into a meeting, peppered him with questions about the source of his income, and arrested Boles.
Although he admitted robbing a couple of coaches in the 1870s, he refused to admit being Black Bart.
Boles was sentenced to six years in San Quentin Prison. While incarcerated he wrote to his wife in Missouri. That was how she learned he was the infamous Black Bart.
He was released after four years, and then he returned to San Francisco. Wells Fargo agents kept an eye on him. He wrote to his wife that he’d grown weary of being followed. That was the last letter she ever received from him.
February 1888: Charles Boles - the polite bandit known as Black Bart - eluded Wells Fargo detectives and vanished. Neither his wife or the general public ever saw him again.
To this day, a plaque commemorating Black Bart and his most famous poem exists four miles outside the town of Copperopolis.
Comments