Black Bart: The Gentleman Bandit Who Robbed Stagecoaches

Black Bart robbed 28 Wells Fargo stagecoaches over eight years, never fired a shot, and left handwritten poems at the scene signed “Black Bart, the Po8.” When Wells Fargo finally caught him in 1883, the most prolific stagecoach robber in American history turned out to be a 55-year-old mining engineer from Illinois named Charles Earl Boles, with a wife and four children in Missouri who had no idea what he was doing in California.^1^

The gap between the mythology and the man is wide, instructive, and genuinely funny.

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The Poems Were a Marketing Strategy, Not a Romantic Gesture

The name “Black Bart” came from a dime novel villain, which tells you something about Boles’s self-awareness. The poems were deliberately theatrical — the robber understood that a colorful criminal attracted press attention, which provided a kind of protection through celebrity. After his second robbery, on August 3, 1877, of a Wells Fargo stage on the Sonora-Milton road, investigators found a note in the strongbox:

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.

It was signed “Black Bart the Po8” and included an address: “Driver, give my respects to our friend, the other driver, but I really had a notion to hang my old disguise hat on his weather eye.” The poem is dogawful verse, but it was perfect PR. The San Francisco newspapers ran it enthusiastically. Wells Fargo, which insured the shipments, was not amused.^2^

Wells Fargo offered $800 for Black Bart’s capture — later raised as the robberies continued — and assigned James Hume, their chief detective, to the case full time. Hume was methodical. He catalogued 28 robberies over eight years, mapped the routes, noted that the robber always worked alone, always on foot, and always in rugged terrain above 1,000 feet elevation. He was dealing with someone who knew the landscape and planned carefully.

What 28 Robberies Actually Earned Him

The total haul from 28 robberies was approximately $18,000 in gold dust and cash over eight years — about $2,250 per year, which was a modest professional income by 1880 standards. Boles robbed 28 coaches to generate the rough annual earnings of a skilled tradesman. He wasn’t getting rich. He was maintaining a respectable lifestyle in San Francisco without working.

He lived in San Francisco’s finest hotels between robberies, dining well, attending church, belonging to clubs. His neighbors and acquaintances knew him as Charles Bolton, a mining executive who traveled frequently for business. The “business trips” were when he walked into the California wilderness and robbed stagecoaches.^3^

On November 3, 1883, a Wells Fargo stage was robbed near Copperopolis, Calaveras County. This time a witness — 19-year-old Reason McConnell, a ranch hand who had hitched a ride on the stage — was near enough to fire at the robber as he fled. Boles dropped a handkerchief. Hume’s investigators traced the laundry mark — F.X.O.7 — to a San Francisco laundry called Ferguson & Bigg on Bush Street, which had 91 customers with that mark. They interviewed them all. One was a Charles Bolton, who lived at the Webb House hotel on Second Street.^4^

Hume arrested Boles on November 13, 1883. Confronted with the evidence, he eventually confessed and led investigators to the site where he’d hidden the latest haul. He was tried, convicted of robbery, and sentenced to six years in San Quentin State Prison.

How Did a Civil War Veteran End Up Robbing Stagecoaches?

Black Bart’s legend rests on three elements: the poetry, the apparent non-violence, and the disguise. All three deserve scrutiny.

The poetry was a deliberate persona construction, not evidence of a romantic spirit. Boles was using the same logic that Jesse James used through his collaborator John Newman Edwards — control the narrative, make yourself interesting, and the public will root for you. He was better at it than most, partly because robbing coaches with an unloaded shotgun and leaving poems behind genuinely is more interesting than shooting cashiers.

The non-violence is real and notable. In 28 robberies, Boles never fired his weapon. He chose targets where the driver was unlikely to fight back — isolated mountain roads, no escort, modest shipments — and he always had a prepared exit route on foot through terrain he had scouted. This was risk management, not sentimentality.

The mystery of why Boles became Black Bart is only partially resolved. He had served in the Union Army during the Civil War, rising to the rank of First Sergeant, and was mustered out in 1865. He then spent years prospecting in Idaho, Montana, and California without success. By 1875, he was 47 years old with no income and a family in Missouri he had effectively abandoned. The first robbery was pragmatic. The persona came after, when the newspapers made him famous.^5^

After Prison, He Vanished

Boles served four years and two months of his six-year sentence and was released from San Quentin on January 21, 1888. A crowd of reporters was waiting outside the prison gates. He gave a brief interview, declined to answer questions about whether he would rob again, and disappeared into San Francisco.

Wells Fargo, concerned that he would resume robbing their coaches, reportedly paid him a pension of $125 per month to stay retired. This is unconfirmed — it comes from a single source — but it was widely believed at the time and would be a fitting end: the most prolific stagecoach robber in history on a corporate retainer.

After 1888, Charles Earl Boles vanished from the historical record. There were reported sightings in Nevada and New Mexico through the 1890s, but none confirmed. His wife in Missouri, Mary Elizabeth Johnson Boles, died in 1896. He may have predeceased her. He may have lived into the twentieth century. Wells Fargo’s coaches eventually gave way to automobiles, and whoever Charles Boles was without a flour sack over his head, he left no further trace. Of all the outlaw legends of the period, Black Bart is the only one whose ending is genuinely unknown — which may be the most romantic thing about him.

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Sources:

1. Dillon, Richard H. Wells Fargo Detective: The Biography of James B. Hume. Coward-McCann, 1969.
2. Collins, William and Bruce Levene. Black Bart: The True Story of the West’s Most Famous Stagecoach Robber. Mendocino County Historical Society, 1992.
3. Secrest, William B. Black Bart: Boulevardier Bandit. Word Dancer Press, 1992.
4. Hume, James B. and John N. Thacker. “Appendix”: Report of Jas. B. Hume and Jno. N. Thacker. Wells, Fargo & Company, 1885.
5. Boessenecker, John. Lawman: The Life and Times of Harry Morse, 1835–1912. University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.