On July 27, 1875, Wells Fargo stage driver John Shine was working his stagecoach down the steep road on Funk Hill 6.4km East of here when a man stepping out of the bushes. He wore a dirty duster, a hood made of a flour sack with holes cut through it, and was armed with a 12-gauge shotgun. "Please throw down the box!" the robber proclaimed, then told scattered figures around "If he dares shoot give him a solid volley, boys." Shine gave up his strongbox, containing $380. When a lady in the stagecoach panicked and threw her purse out, the outlaw picked it up, bowed at her, and handed it back. "Madam, I do not wish your money, In that respect I honor only the good office of Wells Fargo." He then motioned Shine to move along. After a distance, Shine stopped his coach and secretly returned on foot, finding what he thought were additional gunmen were carefully arranged sticks. And so came the first of the Black Bart robberies.
For the next eight years, Black Bart would embark in periodic robberies, basically enough to keep him until money went tight. Some 28 were credited to him, ranging from Jackson County, Oregon, to Sonoma. His center of activity however was the far North of California. All the robberies involved Well Fargo stagecoaches.
After his fourth robbery near
Fort Ross, the robber left a note of doggerel poetry, establishing his moniker and furthering his legend:
"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-b____es.
Black Bart, the P o 8"
Fifth robbery, Butte County:
"To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow.
Yet come what will, I'll try it once,
My conditions can't be worse,
And if there's money in that box,
'Tis money in my purse.
Black Bart, the P o 8"
(also: Driver, give my respects to our old friend, the other driver. I really had a notion to hang my old disguise hat on his weather eye.)
Black Bart had a flair for politeness (especially to ladies) and never fired his gun (he was minimally wounded during his 23rd attempt when the guard immediately fired in response: Black Bart fled).
Ironically, the Black Bart story ends at the same location it began, Funk Hill near Copperopolis. On November 3, 1883, Reason McConnell was driving a stagecoach with $5000. A local hunter, Jimmy Rolleri, had tagged along to hunt deer, and had jumped out at the base of the hill. As McConnell began descending the other side of the hill he was stopped by Black Bart and ordered to hand over his strongbox. Minutes after the robbery, McConnell ran into Rolleri, and the two pursued and shot Black Bart, who disappeared into the hills. Quickly rounding up a posse, the two came back to the scene of the crime, finding mail (some specked with blood), a leather valise containing with two field glasses, a belt, a razor, three soiled linen shirt cuffs, two paper sacks with crackers and sugar, and two empty flour sacks. Also in the bag was an old handkerchief in which was knotted a handful of buckshot.
The handkerchief would prove to be Black Bart's undoing.
Copperoplis, California
