27. This Englishman Had a Bad Experience With Wells Fargo, So He Went on a Crime Spree Against the Company
Charles Earl Boles, better known as Black Bart (1829 – died after 1888), was born in England before his family emigrated to New York in 1831. He joined the 1849 California Gold Rush and spent a few years prospecting, before heading back east and settling in Illinois. During the Civil War, he enlisted in an Illinois regiment and was a good soldier. He became Company First Sergeant within a year and was brevetted as a lieutenant before his discharge in 1865. After the war, Boles returned to prospecting for gold, but an 1871 bad experience with Wells Fargo agents left him vowing vengeance.
So he went on a crime spree against Wells Fargo. Boles changed his name to Black Bart, after a character from a dime novel, and became a highwayman. He specialized in robbing Wells Fargo stagecoaches in northern California and southern Oregon. Bart was viewed as a gentleman bandit because of his politeness and air of sophistication. He robbed on foot, wielding a double-barreled shotgun and clad in a linen duster and bowler hat, his face concealed by a flour sack with eyeholes cut into it.
