Ward’s article reported him as saying, “I never drink and I don’t smoke. All my friends are gentlemen and I never associated with other than gentlemen. I can’t claim to be perfect. They do say I will rob a stage occasionally. But no one can say that I ever raised my hand to do any harm. I merely carried a gun to intimidate the driver. As for using it—why for all the gold that road ever carried I would not shoot a man.”
In the middle of November, Bowles was convicted of only one robbery—the final job—and sentenced to six years in San Quentin prison. While he was imprisoned, the dime novel The Gold Dragon; or, The California Bloodhound: The Story of PO8, the Lone Highwayman was published, adding to his nationwide fame. He never admitted in court that he was Black Bart; he never confessed to another robbery or returned any of the stolen money. It was never determined exactly how much he stole, with estimates ranging between twenty thousand and one hundred thousand dollars, or about three million dollars in today’s money.
He was released in January 1888, an event covered by all the newspapers. He had served four and a half years and was released for good behavior. His eyesight was failing, he said, and he had gone deaf in one ear. Asked by a reporter if he intended to return to his “profession,” he smiled and said, “No, gentlemen. I’m through with crime.” When another reporter followed up by asking if he might write more poetry, he shook his head. “Now, didn’t you hear me say that I am through with crime?”
Detective James Hume, who established Wells Fargo’s own special-agent operation, relentlessly pursued the famous stage robber for eight years.
Wells Fargo agents followed him for several weeks as he moved from town to town, but in February he walked out of the Palace Hotel in Visalia and was never seen or heard from again.
Or was he? In November later that year, a Wells Fargo stagecoach was held up by a masked highwayman in a manner reminiscent of Black Bart. After he escaped, a poem was found:
So here I’ve stood while wind and rain
Have set the trees a-sobbin
And risked my life for that box,
That wasn’t worth the robbin.
The note was sent to Detective Hume for examination. He compared it to the original poems known to have been written by Bowles and announced that this holdup was committed by a copycat.
However, for several years, rumors of Bowles’s activities and whereabouts continued to surface. William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner claimed that after a few robberies in northern California, Wells Fargo had agreed to give Bowles some sort of “pension” in exchange for his promise to never rob another stage, with the figure varying between $125 and $250 a month.
Although the company firmly denied having struck any deal, it did continue to list the newly released “Bolton” as a suspect in several stage holdups, describing him as “a thorough mountaineer, a remarkable walker, and claims he cannot be excelled in making quick transits over mountains and grades,” concluding that he was “a cool self-contained talker with waggish tendencies; and since his arrest … has exhibited genuine wit under most trying circumstances.”
Other stories of his fate speculated that he lived the rest of his life in luxury in Mexico or New York or St. Louis with the proceeds he had secreted from his life of crime. A thief arrested outside Kansas City was identified by local authorities as Black Bart, but one of Hume’s men identified him as a different Wells Fargo robber who had served time in Folsom Prison. That same detective claimed he had discovered what had actually happened to Bowles—he had sailed to Japan on the Empress of China and was living there happily. One newspaper reported he had been killed holding up a stage from Virginia City to Reno and had been buried in a shallow grave at the side of the road. Detective Hume once said he’d heard that Bowles diedwhile
In the middle of November, Bowles was convicted of only one robbery—the final job—and sentenced to six years in San Quentin prison. While he was imprisoned, the dime novel The Gold Dragon; or, The California Bloodhound: The Story of PO8, the Lone Highwayman was published, adding to his nationwide fame. He never admitted in court that he was Black Bart; he never confessed to another robbery or returned any of the stolen money. It was never determined exactly how much he stole, with estimates ranging between twenty thousand and one hundred thousand dollars, or about three million dollars in today’s money.
He was released in January 1888, an event covered by all the newspapers. He had served four and a half years and was released for good behavior. His eyesight was failing, he said, and he had gone deaf in one ear. Asked by a reporter if he intended to return to his “profession,” he smiled and said, “No, gentlemen. I’m through with crime.” When another reporter followed up by asking if he might write more poetry, he shook his head. “Now, didn’t you hear me say that I am through with crime?”
Detective James Hume, who established Wells Fargo’s own special-agent operation, relentlessly pursued the famous stage robber for eight years.
Wells Fargo agents followed him for several weeks as he moved from town to town, but in February he walked out of the Palace Hotel in Visalia and was never seen or heard from again.
Or was he? In November later that year, a Wells Fargo stagecoach was held up by a masked highwayman in a manner reminiscent of Black Bart. After he escaped, a poem was found:
So here I’ve stood while wind and rain
Have set the trees a-sobbin
And risked my life for that box,
That wasn’t worth the robbin.
The note was sent to Detective Hume for examination. He compared it to the original poems known to have been written by Bowles and announced that this holdup was committed by a copycat.
However, for several years, rumors of Bowles’s activities and whereabouts continued to surface. William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner claimed that after a few robberies in northern California, Wells Fargo had agreed to give Bowles some sort of “pension” in exchange for his promise to never rob another stage, with the figure varying between $125 and $250 a month.
Although the company firmly denied having struck any deal, it did continue to list the newly released “Bolton” as a suspect in several stage holdups, describing him as “a thorough mountaineer, a remarkable walker, and claims he cannot be excelled in making quick transits over mountains and grades,” concluding that he was “a cool self-contained talker with waggish tendencies; and since his arrest … has exhibited genuine wit under most trying circumstances.”
Other stories of his fate speculated that he lived the rest of his life in luxury in Mexico or New York or St. Louis with the proceeds he had secreted from his life of crime. A thief arrested outside Kansas City was identified by local authorities as Black Bart, but one of Hume’s men identified him as a different Wells Fargo robber who had served time in Folsom Prison. That same detective claimed he had discovered what had actually happened to Bowles—he had sailed to Japan on the Empress of China and was living there happily. One newspaper reported he had been killed holding up a stage from Virginia City to Reno and had been buried in a shallow grave at the side of the road. Detective Hume once said he’d heard that Bowles diedwhile
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