California Outlaw Black Bart

Charles Bowles
(1829-1888)

On July 26, 1875  in Calaveras County, the Sonora to Milton stage was robbed by a man wearing a flour sack over his head with two holes cut out for the eyes. Underneath that flour sack was a man with graying brown hair, missing two of his front teeth, deep-set piercing blue eyes under heavy eyebrows. Slender hands and intellectual in conversation, well-flavored with polite jokes.

That's  how 14 year-old Donna McCreary described the man who walked to the McCreary farm and paid for dinner.  They called him Black Bart, though he went by the name Charles Bowles. He became known for never shooting anyone during a stagecoach robbery and on occasion, leaving a written poem at the scene of the crime.

Charles Charley Bowles AKA Black Bart:

• Left the family farm in New York with two brothers at the age of 20 and mined gold in California for several years. 
• Left California and married Mary Elizabeth Johnson in 1854. They lived in Decatur, IL and had four kids.
• Fought in the Civil War for three years, was seriously wounded during battle, recovered and was discharged in 1865.
• Began prospecting in Idaho & Montana in 1867. His wife presumed he was dead when he quit writing to her after 1871.
• During first robbery on July 26, 1875, Bowles told John Shine, the stagecoach driver, to "Please throw down the box."
• Committing approx. 28 robberies of Wells Fargo stagecoaches across northern California between 1875 and 1883, he was caught after being shot and leaving personal belongings behind that identified him.
• Bowles was released for good behavior from San Quentin prison in 1888,  two years shy of his 6 year sentence.
• He never returned to his wife, Mary, but wrote her a letter after his prison release. Wells Fargo tracked him to the Palace Hotel in Visalia. The hotel owner said a man answering the description of Bart checked in and then disappeared. The last time the outlaw was seen was February 28, 1888. No one knows for certain what happened to him.