Black Bart

[Furryanimal]

The natty highwayman
In July 1875, the Wild West’s “weirdest outlaw” began his eight-year spate of stagecoach robberies, says The Retrospectors podcast. Black Bart was an unlikely bandit: outside his criminal activities, he was a “nattily dressed, quietly spoken” former teacher from Norfolk known as Charles E Boles. Those people “privileged enough” to be held up by Bart commented on his impeccable manners. The Englishman exclusively robbed Wells Fargo coaches – 28 in total – as the bank had wronged him years before. If fearful customers flung their personal belongings out of carriages, Bart would gallantly return them. During one hold-up, he even bought a traveller’s gun off him rather than steal it.
Unusually for a highwayman, Bart was terrified of horses. As a result, he had to lug hefty strongboxes up to 50 miles on foot to evade capture. He was eventually caught after dropping his handkerchief, which police traced to his laundrette. Yet they, too, were taken with his charm: one detective noted that after his arrest Bart still “exhibited genuine wit under most trying circumstances”

 

[Been There]

Did they ever capture this guy?

 

[Aunt Bea]

Here I lay me down to sleep
To await the coming morrow
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow

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.

Let come what will, I’ll try it on
My condition can’t be worse
And if there’s money in that box
‘Tis money in my purse.

signed BlackBart PO8

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-blackbart/

 

[Paco Dennis]

Yep, they caught him.

"Last stagecoach robbery
His last holdup took place on November 3, 1883, at the site of his first robbery on Funk Hill, southeast of the present town of Copperopolis. Boles wore a flour-sack mask with two eye holes. Driven by Reason McConnell, the stage had crossed the Reynolds Ferry on the old road from Sonora to Milton. The driver stopped at the ferry to pick up Jimmy Rolleri, the 19-year-old son of the ferry owner. Rolleri had his rifle with him and got off at the bottom of the hill to hunt along the creek and meet the stage on the other side. When he arrived at the western end, he found that the stage was not there and began walking up the stage road. Near the summit, he saw the stage driver and his team of horses.

McConnell told him that as the stage had approached the summit, Boles had stepped out from behind a rock with a shotgun in his hands. He forced McConnell to unhitch the team and take them over the crest of the hill. Boles then tried to remove the strongbox from the stage, but it had been bolted to the floor and took Boles some time to remove. Rolleri and McConnell went over the crest and saw Boles backing out of the stage with the strong box. McConnell grabbed Rolleri's rifle and fired at Boles twice but missed. Rolleri took the rifle and fired as Boles entered a thicket. He stumbled as if he had been hit. Running to the thicket, they found a small, blood-stained bundle of mail he had dropped.

Boles had been wounded in the hand. After running a quarter of a mile, he stopped and wrapped a handkerchief around his hand to control the bleeding. He found a rotten log and stuffed the sack with the gold amalgam into it, keeping $500 in gold coins. He hid the shotgun in a hollow tree, threw everything else away, and fled. In a manuscript written by stage driver McConnell about 20 years after the robbery, he claimed he fired all four shots at Boles. The first missed, but he thought the second or third shot hit Boles, and was sure the fourth did. Boles only had the one wound to his hand.

Investigation and arrest
When Boles was wounded and forced to flee, he left behind several personal items. These included his eyeglasses, some food, and a handkerchief with a laundry mark F.X.O.7. Wells Fargo Detective James B. Hume found these at the scene. Hume and detective Harry N. Morse contacted every laundry in San Francisco about the laundry mark. After visiting nearly 90 laundries, they finally traced it to Ferguson & Bigg's California Laundry on Bush Street and were able to learn that the handkerchief belonged to a man who lived in a modest boarding house.

The detectives learned that Boles called himself a mining engineer and made frequent "business trips" that coincided with the Wells Fargo robberies. After initially denying he was Black Bart, Boles eventually admitted he had robbed several Wells Fargo stages, though he confessed only to crimes committed before 1879. Boles apparently believed the statute of limitations had expired on those robberies. When booked, he gave his name as T. Z. Spalding, but police found a Bible, a gift from his wife, inscribed with his real name.

The police report said that Boles was "a person of great endurance. Exhibited genuine wit under most trying circumstances, and was extremely proper and polite in behavior. Eschews profanity."

Conviction and imprisonment​

Wells Fargo only pressed charges on the final robbery. Boles was convicted and sentenced to six years in San Quentin Prison, but he was released after four years for good behavior, in January 1888. His health had clearly deteriorated due to his time in prison; he had visibly aged, his eyesight was failing, and he had gone deaf in one ear. Reporters swarmed around him when he was released and asked if he was going to rob any more stagecoaches. "No, gentlemen," he replied, smiling, "I'm through with crime."

Final days​

Boles never returned to his wife after his release from prison, though he did write to her. In one of the letters he said he was tired of being shadowed by Wells Fargo, felt demoralized, and wanted to get away from everybody. In February 1888, Boles left the Nevada House and vanished. Hume said Wells Fargo tracked him to the Visalia House hotel in Visalia.[5] The hotel owner said a man answering the description of Boles had checked in and then disappeared. Black Bart was last seen on February 28, 1888. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Bart_(outlaw)#Last_stagecoach_robbery

 

[Fyrefox]

I guess that you could say that those stagecoaches were robbed by a Smooth Criminal! If only Boles had been born later, had some hot dance moves, and could sing, he might have opted for a career in entertainment rather than crime…

 

[Capt Lightning]

The title reminded of another famous 'Black Bart' - the Welsh pirate, Barti Ddu AKA Bartholomew Roberts.
Black Bart Was the Most Successful Pirate of His Generation In the three years between 1719 and 1722, Roberts captured and looted over 400 vessels, terrorising merchant shipping from Newfoundland to Brazil and the Caribbean and the African coast. No other pirate of his age comes close to that number of captured vessels. So fearsome was his reputation, that captains would often simply surrender without a shot being fired.

 

[Right Now]

What a terrific adventure to share @Furryanimal! I'd not heard of Black Bart, but look at what I've missed. He sounds like a kind gentleman who took out his bitterness with Wells Fargo in the best way possible without harming or intentionally hurting other folks.
If I wore a top hat, it would be in my hand accompanied by a slight bow to him.