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    The Capture of Black Bart: Gentleman Bandit of the Old West
    The Capture of Black Bart: Gentleman Bandit of the Old West
    The Capture of Black Bart: Gentleman Bandit of the Old West
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    The Capture of Black Bart: Gentleman Bandit of the Old West

    By Norman H. Finkelstein

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    About this ebook

    Black Bart was not the Old West's only stagecoach robber, but he was the most famous. To many people, he was a folk hero: a robber who didn't threaten or harm passengers. He was a bandit with a sense of humor who wrote poetry. In robbing at least 28 Wells Fargo stagecoaches across Northern California between 1875 and 1883, he never fired a shot or injured anyone. His gun, it turned out, was never loaded.

    Newspaper stories about the poet robber's exploits and about Jim Hume, the unyielding chief detective of Wells Fargo, became popular reading throughout the West. Black Bart seemed to enjoy the chase. During one robbery the driver told him, "They'll catch you one of these days." Bart answered, "Perhaps, but in the meantime, give my regards to J. B. Hume, will you?" For eight years, each new robbery—and each new story—made Hume even more determined to track him down.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChicago Review Press
    Release dateNov 6, 2018
    ISBN9781613739983
    The Capture of Black Bart: Gentleman Bandit of the Old West

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      Book preview

      The Capture of Black Bart - Norman H. Finkelstein

      FROM THE CAPTURE OF BLACK BART:

      NEARLY A YEAR PASSED BEFORE Black Bart’s next robbery. On July 25, 1878, he stopped the Quincyto- Oroville stage, high in the Sierra Nevada. As the stage descended a hill, a masked man suddenly jumped out in front of the horses, stopping the coach. Throw out the box, he demanded while pointing a shotgun at Charley Seavy, the driver. The masked robber escaped with nearly $400 in coins, a $200 diamond ring, and a $25 watch. But he left behind his second and final poem in the broken treasure box, this one written on brown paper:

      Here I lay me down to sleep

      to wait the coming morrow

      perhaps success perhaps defeat

      and everlasting sorrow.

      Let come what will I’ll try it on

      my condition can’t be worse

      and if there’s money in that box

      tis munny in my purse.

      —Black Bart the Po8 [poet]

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      Copyright © 2019 by Norman H. Finkelstein

      All rights reserved

      Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated

      814 North Franklin Street

      Chicago, Illinois 60610

      ISBN 978-1-61373-995-2

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Finkelstein, Norman H., author.

      Title: The capture of Black Bart : gentleman bandit of the Old West / Norman H. Finkelstein.

      Other titles: Black Bart, gentleman bandit of the Old West

      Description: Chicago, Illinois : Chicago Review Press Incorporated, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Audience: Ages 10 and up.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018014940 (print) | LCCN 2018015235 (ebook) | ISBN 9781613739969 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781613739983 (epub) | ISBN 9781613739976 (kindle) | ISBN 9781613739952 (cloth)

      Subjects: LCSH: Brigands and robbers—California—Biography—Juvenile literature. | Outlaws—California—Biography—Juvenile literature. | Stagecoach robberies—California—History—Juvenile literature. | Frontier and pioneer life—California—Juvenile literature.

      Classification: LCC F866.B59 (ebook) | LCC F866.B59 F55b 2019 (print) | DDC 979.4/04092 [B]—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014940

      Interior design: Sarah Olson

      Map design: Chris Erichsen

      Printed in the United States of America

      5 4 3 2 1

      For Tova, Joseph, and Iliana

      CONTENTS

      Map

      1 A Ghost Appears

      2 Wells Fargo Connects the West

      3 James B. Hume, Lawman

      4 A Legend Grows

      5 Closing In

      6 The Capture

      7 Who Was Black Bart?

      Epilogue

      List of Robberies Attributed to Black Bart

      Notes

      Bibliography

      Image Credits

      Black Bart’s stagecoach holdups spread all over the rugged landscape of Northern California. Lawmen wondered how he could travel long distances on foot so quickly between robberies. Only with his capture was the truth revealed.

      1

      A GHOST APPEARS

      I don’t want your money, only the express box and mail.

      —BLACK BART

      Before automobiles, telephones, and airplanes, stagecoaches linked the isolated mining towns of the Old West. While passengers bounced and swayed inside drafty, dusty coaches, valuables were stowed under the driver’s seat in a sturdy green wooden box of Wells, Fargo & Company. The box was encircled by an iron strap and secured with a heavy padlock. The box weighed 25 pounds when empty. People called it the treasure box for all the wealth it contained.

      Robbers set their sights on those distinctive green boxes. Many thieves were chased off, wounded, or even killed by drivers or guards. Those who escaped were relentlessly tracked down by James B. Hume, Wells Fargo’s chief detective, a fearless but fair former sheriff. His job was to chase down anyone foolish enough to rob a Wells Fargo stagecoach. He always lived up to the company’s motto—Wells Fargo never forgets. Jim Hume was very busy. In 1875 alone, Wells Fargo stagecoaches were stopped 34 times by robbers, with a total of $87,000 (worth nearly $2 million today) stolen.

      On July 26, 1875, driver John Shine slowly guided his stagecoach up Funk Hill, a steep mountain road near Copperopolis, California. He knew this part of the trip from Sonora to Milton, California, was especially hard on the horses. Without warning, a ghostlike figure jumped out from behind a large boulder in front of the huffing horses and blocked the stagecoach’s path. Shine brought the horses to a quick stop. The figure crouched low, using the horses as a shield. Menacingly, he aimed a double-barreled shotgun at the driver.

      Shine stared at the strange-looking figure before him. The bandit wore a long white duster (a type of lightweight coat), and his shoes were wrapped in rags. Only his eyes were visible through two holes cut out of the flour sack that covered his face. Comically, a dark derby, or bowler, hat sat on his head, placed at a jaunty angle.

      TOUGH HANK MONK

      Stagecoach drivers like John Shine were a tough group. They had to be strong, resourceful, and in command. Perhaps the best known and respected among them was Henry James Hank Monk. Mark Twain, in his book Roughing It, humorously—and with a bit of exaggeration—related the time when Monk drove the stage carrying famed New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley, who coined the phrase Go West, young man:

      Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then he

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