The Story of Charles E. Boles
aka Black Bart
(Fact & Legend)
After the Calaveras County, Sonora to Milton stage was robbed on November 3, 1883, a Charles Bolton of 37 Second Street in San Francisco was arrested from the evidence of a laundry mark (FXO7) on a handkerchief dropped at the sight. Four blocks down from the Wells Fargo Headquarters. What they found was a dapperly dressed man in his mid-fifties. Sporting a brushy moustache and an "Imperial" below the bottom lip, with clear blue/grey eyes he stood 5 feet 8 inches. Sometime during his stay in the army he had rec'd a bible from his wife which was inscribed, "This precious Bible is presented to Charles E. Boles, First Sergeant Company B 116th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, by his wife as a New Years gift. God gives us hearts to which His...faith to believe. Decatur, Illinois, 1865" This Bible was taken from "Bolton's" apartment in San Francisco by Wells Fargo Special Officer, James B. Hume.
He was actually Charles Earl(?) Bowles born in Norfolk Co. England in 1829 (seventh child to John and Maria). At the age of two he migrated with his parents to Alexandria township, Jefferson County, in upstate New York. His father John Bowles farmed their homestead of nearly 100 acres which lay 4 miles north of Plessis village, toward Alexandria Bay, across the road from the school house. Two more children were born. (See family chart)
Charles and cousin David set out for the goldfields in late 1849, stopping in St. Joseph or Independance Missouri for the winter. By early 1850 they were in California and started mining at the Northfork of the American River and soon moved on to places in Butte, El Dorado and Tuolumne counties. (In March of 1850 gold was discovered in Columbia and 3000 miners swarmed into this place in Tuolumne and set up camp. Charlie could have been one of these.) They even mined with some success in Shasta and Trinity counties before heading home to New York. (The life of a miner was one that made rough and rugged individuals. The experience of these years spent in the gold fields would have prepared him for his military life. It is also worth noting that these were the years that also prepared him for the life he would lead after the war in very familiar surroundings!)
He went back to California by 1852 with family
and suddenly his younger brother Robert Boles died.
(He is buried in the Yerba Buena Cemetery in San Francisco.)
Two years later Charles was done with mining and headed for home, stopping at
Decatur, Illinois. Here he married his wife Mary Elizabeth Johnson
and he had two daughters by
1861.
(The remains of his home in Decatur saw its
last days in the 1980s.)
Being home with his family wasn't excitement enough with the nation at war. He enlisted for three years with the 116th Reg't Illinois Infantry on August 13th, 1862 at Decatur.
By 1867 (is this his earliest known image?) he was on his way to the silver mines of Idaho and Montana. After writing his wife from Silver Bow, Montana in August of 1871 (He had a bad experience with men who worked for Wells, Fargo & Co. and swore to get back what was his....) he headed for the gold fields of California for more excitement. Not much for horses he walked almost everywhere he went. Having marched 20+ miles a day with the Union army and living in the open air,(something he had first learned while a goldminer for four years!) California suited him nicely. Some legends have him teaching school. His wife assumed him dead when he stopped writing. Something happened in those four years to change his way of looking at things. On July 26, 1875 the Sonora to Milton stage in Calaveras County was robbed by a man wearing a flour sack over his head with two holes cut out for the eyes. The stage driver, John Shine, (later became a US Marshal & State Senator) said he carried a double barreled shotgun and wore a long linen duster and sacks on his boots as well, to hide his garb. His voice was resonnant and deep and he only said, "Please throw down the box!" He was polite and used no foul language. These became his trademarks. (Another robbery attributed to him and his "Gang" netted the robber(s) $1800 in gold & $600 in coin on August 17, 1875. But this one was never officially counted in the 28.)
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"I've labored long and hard for bread
for honor and for riches
But on my corns too long youve tred
You fine haired sons of Bitches
Black Bart
the PO 8
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.
Respectfully, B.B."
It was rumored that he went to the town of Guerneville the next morning.
Soon an $800 reward was issued for the capture of the stage robber Black Bart. By this time James B. Hume is on the trail of the outlaw. Hume knows that Bart wears a No. 8 shoe. Legend states that Bart stopped at the Commercial Hotel and partied on Saturday night at the Gem Saloon. He was also supposed to have had a laison with a Mary Vollmer at the Woodleaf Hotel.
Some Details of the Last Robbery
The stage driver, Reason E. McConnell picks up a 19-year-old named Jimmy Rolleri, who wanted to do a little small-game hunting down the stagecoach road. McConnell was happy to have the company. But Jimmy wasn't seeing any animals, so when the stage had to go up one particularly steep hill, the teenager grabbed his repeating rifle (Henry) and said he'd rather walk around it, maybe flush some dinner out of the brush.
When Bart held up the stage he noted the missing "shotgun" and asked the driver. McConnell said that he went hunting. Bart sent him away with the horses and McConnell kept an eye out for Jimmy. Together they came back up to the coach and they saw Bart was hatcheting the strong box when McConnell fired twice and Jimmy took the rifle and fired once. Bart ran for the brush, clutching his gold but dropping a bundle of stolen mail.
There was signs of blood on the mail and it showed that Jimmy had made the best shot. They also found that Bart had dropped his derby and failed to pick up some belongings that he'd sequestered behind a nearby rock; bags of crackers and sugar, a pair of field glasses, a couple of flour sacks, three dirty linen cuffs, a razor, and a handkerchief full of buckshot. Without too much trouble, the Calaveras County sheriff located the woman who had sold Bart his provisions, along with two other men who'd seen a stranger matching the highwayman's physical description. But the clue that broke the Black Bart case was a laundry mark on that abandoned handkerchief: FXO7
Ninty-one laundries in San Francisco. One week of searching & in the California Laundry the name and mark are matched. When booked he signed his name "T.Z. Spaulding." He entered his place of birth as New York in 1832. He was a dapper old fellow and didn't look like the evil creation of the wild legend.
His annual average "income" amounted to $6000. That's a tidy sum for that day and age.
Wells Fargo detective James Hume and his agents traced the mark through the 91 San Francisco laundries to find that the handkerchief belonged to Charles E. Bolton, a respectable mine engineer who was staying at Room 40, 37 2nd Street, San Francisco. Hume had him arrested and in his report recorded that Black Bart was, "A person of great endurance. Exhibited genuine wit under most trying circumstances. Extremely proper and polite in behaviour, eschews profanity."
He was sentenced to San Quentin Prison for six years but it was shortened to four years for good behavior. Reporters swarmed around him when he was released. They asked if he were going to rob anymore stagecoaches. "No gentlemen," he smilingly replied, "I'm all through with crime." Another reporter asked if he would write more poetry. He laughed, "Now didn't you hear me say that I am through with crime?"
"GIT BACK!"
