goldfields

Charles E. Bolton was released from San Quentin State Prison on January 21, 1888. What next?

Not “a bad sort of man, for a highway robber,” was the opinion of one lawman, who went on to describe him as “an amiable, pleasant-spoken fellow, with a good command of language and an appreciation of the humorous.” “He is an oldish man now –53– and his incarceration has made him thoughtful as to his future.” He didn’t think he would go back to holding up stages.

Bart stayed for a couple of weeks in San Francisco (at which time he may have been able to recover some of the money he had stolen). He next turned up in the Central Valley — during March he was seen in Stockton, Oakdale, Modesto, and Merced. The last sighting was in Visalia, where Bart stayed at the Palace Hotel under the name of Moore.

He left behind a valise, which he instructed the hotelkeeper to forward to Detective James B. Hume. The valise contained a number of items that were associated with Black Bart, including an item of clothing marked FX07. And that was the last verified sighting of the man called Black Bart.

But it was hardly the end of the legend. Stagecoach robberies throughout California and Nevada were attributed to Bart, even when they didn’t fit his modus operandi. Like this one, from November 1888.

People thought they saw Black Bart in all sorts of out of the way places. Desperados in other states claimed to be Black Bart. Hume sent detective Jonathan Thacker to investigate one such case in Kansas. Thacker wrote back that the culprit looked as much like Bart “as a bird’s nest is like a mile post.” In 1897 Thacker stated:

He went to Utah and then up to Montana and then to Hailey, Idaho. I think he had some business to settle there. Anyhow, he was as straight as a string. Finally he made a bee-line for Vancouver and boarded the steamer Empress of China for Japan. He is in that country now.

Wells, Fargo Detective: A Biography of James B. Hume, by Richard Dillon, p. 206

How did he know that? He doesn’t say. Though I do kind of like to imagine Black Bart the Po8 sitting under the cherry blossoms, sipping tea and composing haiku.

But the authors of Black Bart: The Search is Over have another idea, one that is appealing, even if more prosaic, than the image of Bart in the land of the samurai. They think he stayed right here in California.

Next time: Where Is Black Bart’s Resting Place?

Charles E. Bolton, aka Black Bart, entered San Quentin State Prison on November 21, 1883. It had only been eighteen days since his arrest. Justice was swift in those day.

While in prison Bart wrote letters to his family in Missouri and to Reason McConnell, the stage driver of his last holdup, and others to whom he felt he owed an apology. He intended to be a model prisoner in hopes that he could shorten his six-year sentence. At first he worked in the prison laundry, but his intelligence and good behavior soon promoted him to a position in the hospital pharmacy.

Bart spent three years working as a pharmacist and became proficient at compounding medications. The last year of his term he worked as a trusty in the warden’s office. His fine even penmanship appears in prison records from that time.

After serving four and a half years of his sentence, Bart was released on January 21, 1888.

Where would he live? How would he support himself? What had become of all his ill-gotten gains? Could he lay his hands on any of it?

Next time: Black Bart disappears — to where?

To read more about Black Bart: There are several books about the life and crimes of that fascinating bandit, Black Bart. I have been using Black Bart: The Search Is Over, by Robert E. Jernigan and Wiley Joiner, but there are many other books.

And of course it’s all online too. Check out the website www.blackbart.com for Bart’s history, including a list of all his robberies.

Previously I have written about Black Bart’s stagecoach robberies in Butte County, where I live. You can read those here and here and here and here.

FX07 was the code that brought down Black Bart. It was a laundry mark. In the day when men had their shirts, detachable collars and cuffs, handkerchiefs, and other items of clothing cleaned at a laundry, the items were marked in an inconspicuous place with an indelible marker to identify the owner.

At his twenty-eighth and last robbery on November 3 1883, Black Bart was wounded and left behind a number of articles as he escaped, including a handkerchief labeled FX07. Detective Harry Morse, who had been hired to work full-time on the Black Bart case, suspected it came from a laundry in San Francisco. It would take time to canvass all the laundries — there were 91 in the City. After a few days he matched it to the Ferguson and Biggs California Laundry at 113 Stevenson Street. The laundry identified FX07 as belonging to Charles E. Bolton, a mine owner.

Posing as a mining man and acquaintance of Bolton, Morse persuaded the laundry agent to give him Bolton’s address. Continuing the deception, he met with Bolton and got him into the office of Detective James Hume. Bolton claimed to be T.Z. Spaulding, an honest citizen and mine owner. But the masquerade fell apart when the detectives searched his rooms at the Webb House hotel and found more items with the FX07 mark. Black Bart was caught.

Bart was identified by a man who had seen him at the scene of his last robbery. The stage driver recognized his distinctively deep voice. The net was closing in.

Photographs were taken, the only photos we have of Black Bart. He doesn’t look like a stagecoach robber. With his well-groomed gray mustache, his curly-brimmed bowler, his good-quality coat and overcoat, and his walking stick, he looks like a prosperous businessman.

Realizing that the jig was up, Charles Boles, alias Charles Bolton, alias Black Bart the Po8, confessed to multiple stage robberies. He recalled every detail of every crime. He revealed how he had planned his robberies and how he had evaded capture. He offered to show the lawmen where he had hidden the gold from his last holdup. $5000 in gold was recovered.

On November 17th Bart appeared before a judge in Calaveras County and pleaded guilty to the one last robbery that led to his arrest. He was never tried for the other 27 holdups. This deal was in the interests of all concerned.

Bart got a sentence of six years in prison, much less than most stage robbers got. That he never carried a loaded gun and never harmed passengers or drivers was taken into consideration.

He avoided a lengthy trial. So did the witnesses and detectives who awaited their shares in the reward money. They got their reward much sooner than they would have if Bart had gone to trial.

The press had a field day with Black Bart.

Next time: Black Bart at San Quentin

Law enforcement lost track of Charles E. Boles, the gentleman bandit known as Black Bart, after his release from San Quentin Prison on January 21, 1888.

During March he was seen in Stockton, Oakdale, and Modesto. He was last spotted in Visalia, staying at the Palace Hotel. After that he disappeared. Some later stagecoach robberies were attributed to him, but they were not consistent with his usual methods. He seemed to have vanished.

Boles had a wife and daughters living in Hannibal, Missouri, but they never heard from him.

Where did he go?

A likely answer can be found in this book: Black Bart: The Search is Over, by Robert E. Jernigan and Wiley Joiner, published by Shalako Press in 2015. I bought the book at The Bookworm, the used and new bookstore in Oroville conveniently located next door to the Pioneer Museum. An expanded version of the book has been published under the title Black Bart’s Resting Place: In Everlasting Sleep, by the same authors.

Over the next few posts I’ll be telling you about the authors’ conclusions about Bart and where he ended up. But let’s start with the “why.” Why did Charles E. Boles, an intelligent and well-educated man, turn to a life of crime?

He was born in England in 1829 and the family emigrated to the United States in 1831. In 1849 Charles and two brothers joined the California Gold Rush. Returning to Illinois in 1854, Charles married and took up farming. He served as a Union soldier in the Civil War. Upon his discharge in 1865 he returned to his farm and his wife and children, only to find that his wife had a baby boy that was not his. He soon left for the mining fields of Idaho and Montana.

According to Jernigan and Joiner:

Charles had a good-paying claim [in Silver Bow, Montana] and was doing well when two members of the Wells Fargo Company approached him and made an offer to buy his claim, advising him it would be beneficial to his well-being to sell. Charles informed them his claim was not for sale. The two agents bought up all the lesser claims around Charles’s claim, thereby shutting off his water. He could no longer mine his claim. Under the threat of violence, Charles left his Montana claim, vowing to get even someday. {p. 89]

This story may come from a newspaper interview with Charles Boles (who went by the name Charles Bolton in California). The authors don’t always cite their sources, so I am not sure. But such an event could lead to lasting animosity toward Well, Fargo & Co. And certainly Black Bart targeted the Wells, Fargo strongbox on the coach. He didn’t rob passengers.

Wells, Fargo owed him, he thought, and he would make them pay.

Next time: How Black Bart was captured