Black Bart

Black Bart, also known as Charles E. Boles or Charles Bolton was an American outlaw who once lived in Vernon Springs, Iowa. Two of his four children were born in New Oregon, Howard County and one is buried at New Oregon (scroll down to read about his wife and children).

Charles E. Bowles was born in Norfolk County, England in 1829. At the age of two he migrated with his parents to Alexandria township, Jefferson County, in up-state New York (in 1831). The family homestead lay four miles north of Plessis Village, toward Alexandria Bay. At some point Charley, as he was usually called, changed his last name from Bowles to Boles for an unknown reason.

Charley, as everyone called him, had a common school education but excelled at sports and was probably, for his weight, the best collar and elbow wrestler in Jefferson County. As a small child he had smallpox but was strong enough to overcome it. It was an endurance quality that would serve him well during his gold mining days, during the Civil War and again during his career as Black Bart.

In 1849 Charley and Cousin David set out for the goldfields, spending a hard winter in either St. Joseph or Independence, Missouri. They arrived in California in early 1850 and started mining at the north fork of the American River, near Sacramento. Gold mining in the early days was back-breaking work, often with few rewards. Charley and his cousin mined for only a year before returning home in 1852. Charley insisted on returning to the California gold fields. This time his brother, Robert, accompanied Charley and David to California. However, tragedy struck on this trip, and both David and Robert were taken ill and died in California soon after their arrival. Charley continued mining for two more years before returning home. Charley then went to Illinois where he married Mary Elizabeth Johnson in 1854. They had four children.

In 1861 the Civil War broke out and in 1862 Charley volunteered to join the Union Army. He enlisted for three years with the 116th Regiment of the Illinois Infantry on August 13th, 1862, at Decatur. On July 1, 1863, Charley was promoted to a First Sergeant in Company B and twice had the opportunity of becoming a Lieutenant. On May 26, 1864, at Dallas, Georgia, he received a severe wound in the right side/abdominal region. Considering the conditions of the wound, it is remarkable that he survived. After his recovery Charley returned to his unit and fought in the battle of Atlanta. Charley served honorably as a soldier during the war and was mustered out as a First Sergeant on June 7, 1865. After the war Charley returned home and started farming again, but farming was not to his liking, and he became restless. After all the time in the army and living in the open air, along with memories of the goldfields, Charley decided he could make more money mining than farming. With his wife's permission he left his family to look for gold.

Charles E. Boles, also known as Black Bart, gained notoriety for the poetic messages he left behind after two of his robberies. Often called Charley (his childhood nickname) by his friends, he was a gentleman bandit with a reputation for style and sophistication. Operating in northern California and southern Oregon during the 1870s and 1880s, Black Bart or P o S as he also liked to call himself, was one of the most notorious stagecoach robbers of his time. He lived a seemingly unremarkable life in San Francisco, appearing as a kindly, prosperous old man. However, beneath this façade, he was the infamous Black Bart, a stage robber-poet. Bart robbed stages periodically, sometimes with as much as nine months between robberies, and he claimed to “take only what was needed when it was needed”. He was always extremely courteous to passengers, especially women travelers, refusing to take their jewelry and cash. He made a favorable impression on drivers and passengers alike as a courteous, gentlemanly robber who apparently wanted to avoid a gunfight at all costs.

Most stagecoach drivers were submissive to him, obediently handing over the strongbox when ordered. But George W. Hackett proved the exception. On July 13, 1882, driving a Wells Fargo stage near Strawberry, California, Hackett defied Bart, leading to a confrontation that left Bart wounded but still at large. (When Hackett reached for a rifle, he fired a shot at the bandit. Bart dashed into the woods and vanished, but he received a scalp wound that would leave a permanent scar on the top right side of his forehead). On July 30, 1878, while robbing the stage from La Porte to Oroville, Black Bart added to his legend. Again, a woman traveler attempted to get out of the stage and give up her valuables to Bart. Black Bart stopped her and said: "No lady, don't get out. I never bother the passengers. Keep calm. I'll be through here in a minute and on my way." With that he took the express box containing $50 in gold and a silver watch, the mail sacks and was on his way.

With his loot, Bart had invested in several small businesses which brought him a modest income, but he could not resist the urge to go back to robbing stages when money became short. The lone bandit continued to stop Wells Fargo stages with regularity, always along mountain roads where the driver was compelled to slow down at dangerous curves. It was later estimated that Bart robbed as much as $18,000 from Wells Fargo stages over the course of his career, striking twenty-eight times. He left no clues whatsoever, although he did leave a spare gun after one robbery.

Why did Charles Boles decide to call himself Black Bart? Bart himself told Harry Morse and Captain Stone why when they were going out to pick up the gold amalgam from his last robbery. He said that he had read the story "The Case of Summerfield" several years earlier. When he was searching for a name, that one just popped into his mind. He chuckled at the stir his verse had created when signed by the name Black Bart. On June 30, 1864, supposed Confederate troops held up the Placerville stage, and Captain Henry M. Ingraham, C.S.A. receipted to Wells Fargo for the treasure. Then in 1871, a San Francisco lawyer, William H. Rhodes, under the pen name "Caxton" resurrected the captain as Bartholomew Graham in a dime novel story called "The Case of Summerfield," which appeared also in the Sacramento Union. Graham, known as "Black Bart," according to Rhodes, had been "engaged in the late robbery of Wells Fargo's express at Grizzly Bend!"  Of more importance was the rest of his description: "He is 5 foot 10.5 inches in height, clear blue eyes and served in the civil war." Stage drivers never forgot those "clear blue eyes." By using the name Black Bart, Boles took advantage of an established dime novel bad guy. So, the robber Black Bart was already known as someone to be feared. If you were robbed by Black Bart, you didn't argue, you just gave up the loot.

At the fourth and fifth robbery Bart left a note. He signed the note with a name that would go down in western history: "Black Bart, P o 8." The letters and number mystified lawmen as much as the name Black Bart. Any tracking posse found no trace of the elusive bandit, and superstition had it that the stage indeed had been robbed by a ghost. There were only two poems, but it is one of the most recognizable parts of the legend.

At the fourth robbery:

"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 P o 8"

At the fifth robbery:

"To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow.
Yet come what will, I'll try it once,
My conditions can't be worse,
But if there's money in that box,
It's munny in my purse.
Black Bart, the P o 8"

After so many successful robberies, the P o 8 thought his luck would continue forever, but it was not to be. On November 3,1883, his luck ran out.

On Wednesday, November 21, 1883, Black Bart began serving his six-year sentence at San Quentin Prison. It had only been 18 days since that last fateful robbery at Funk Hill. He was logged in as Charles E. Bolton and officially known as Number 11046. He denied being Black Bart or Charles E. Boles. Some think the reason he insisted on keeping the Bolton name was in some way to protect the family that he had so long ago deserted. However, during his stay in San Quentin he did send and receive letters from his wife, Mary Boles, and other family members. For the most part his letters were warm and friendly.

During most of his stay at San Quentin Bart worked as a clerk or bookkeeper in the prison hospital. His work in the dispensary of the prison had gained the respect of the physician, Doctor Rich, and apothecary, Fred Fuller. By close attendance to his duties Bart had become sufficiently acquainted with the art of compounding prescriptions to enable him to take a position in a drug store. When asked, Bart said he might settle down somewhere after his release as a drug clerk. While in prison Bart did not have many associations with prisoners, feeling himself superior to other convicts. He did, however, have one unlikely close friend, Charles E. Dorsey. Dorsey was a cold-blooded murder and robber. One wonders what they had in common.

While Bart was in prison there was no record of him having any visitors. However, there were many stories and rumors of the people that had visited him. There was one interesting story from a family member, saying the information came from one of Bart's letters to his wife. It suggested that a very wealthy man had become interested in him and may have been instrumental in his early release.

On January 21, 1888, after serving four years and two months of a six-year sentence, Black Bart walked out of San Quentin prison a free man. It was said that his early release was because of the "Goodwin Act" that allowed prisoners time off for good behavior. Even though he had been in prison for over four years, the press was still interested in a new Black Bart story, and they were there to greet him when he was released. The press bombarded him with questions. He said his name was Charles Bolton and that is what he wanted to be called. He said he was older now and could feel the added years, not that prison life had hurt him, for he was still in good health. He added he was becoming a bit deaf now and needed glasses for reading. One reporter asked if he would go back to robbing stagecoaches; Bart said he was through with crime. Another reporter asked if he would write any more poems? Bart turned to him and said, "Young man didn't you hear me say I would commit no more crimes?"

Bart went back to San Francisco and took a room at the Nevada House located at 132 Sixth Street. There Wells Fargo kept close track of him, and Bart did not like it. In February 1888 Bart left the Nevada House and vanished. Wells Fargo tracked him to the Palace Hotel in Visalia where a man answering the description of Bart checked in and then disappeared. That was the last time anyone saw Black Bart, February 28, 1888. In 1892 Mary Boles listed herself in the city directory as the widow of Charles E. Boles. She may have known more than she was telling, but then again, she may have just given up and done it to get on with her life. Supposedly In 1917, a New York newspaper printed an obituary for a Charles E. Boles, a Civil War veteran. If this was Bart, he would have been 88 years old.

Credit goes to: Black Bart California's Infamous Stage Robber and Photo is used with permission from Wells Fargo Corporate Archives.