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Black Bart Autographed Inscription While in Prison, 1888
A Discussion, by Fred Holabird, 2025
Introduction
Black Bart, aka Charles Boles, appears to have signed this book during his last days in prison and dated the inscription January 1, 1888. The book, in all probability, may have belonged to one of the unnamed reporters from the San Francisco Examiner, who began interviews with Boles about January 1 and continued through his release from San Quentin Prison twenty days later. The interviews published in the Examiner were explosive, and did not paint Wells Frago Detective James Hume in good light. There were also explosive discussions between Hume and Examiner owner William Randolph Hearst over these interviews, the gist of which were published later by Hume biographer Richard Dillon in 1969. Prior to those interviews, not a single visitor to San Quentin went to see Boles since his imprisonment on November 21, 1883.
The Book, signed by Black Bart
The book containing Black Bart's famous paragraph is the Pictorial History of the United States by S.G. Goodrich, published by E.H. Butler of Philadelphia, 1871. The book has resided in the Mother Lode region for decades. The exact provenance is unknown.
It has the personal book stamp of John Kepner on the front fly page. On the second fly page is the following:
November, 23rd, 1871
Mummasburg, Penna
Steal not this book my
Friend for fear the gallows be
Your end.
Jno Kepners
book"
A secondary inscription in pencil states "Aug. 13, 1903, Florence B. Kepner". Florence Kepner is John Kepner's daughter, born 1899. She became Mrs. Charles Bowers. John Kepner was born in 1848 in Pennsylvania. The inscription appears to be in John Kepner's hand.
The Black Bart inscription is on the back of the last fly page in the book.
Here I lay me down to sleep
To hail the coming morrow
Perhaps Success Perhaps defeat
And Everlasting Sorrow
Let come what may (crossed out) will Ill try it on
My condition cant be worse
And if there money in that box
Tis money in my purse
Black Bart Po. 8
Written Jan 1st, AD 1888
This date is of great significance. It is the very first day anyone visited Boles at San Quentin Prison. There is no formal record of who went to see him, excepting an article in a San Francisco newspaper written by a reporter that saw him that day.
Black Bart Gets Caught
Boles (Black Bart) was caught after being shot by a passenger during a holdup in Calaveras County, California, where Boles frequented. He never shot anyone, never robbed a passenger, focusing his angst and heists on Wells Fargo & Co.'s Express during his holdups of twenty nine stage coaches. Boles was a keen observer, and learned the isolated routes the Wells, Fargo stage coaches used carrying passengers and the ever-present money boxes known as "treasure boxes." He was particularly interested in the routes in California's gold country, though he also knew and robbed along the stage routes in northern California. The last route he "worked" was a stage route in the foothills about ten miles west of the main Mother Lode at Angel's Camp, where the hills were less rough, providing trails that were faster for a stage coach, and far less crowded than the main lines through the central Mother Lode Country traveled by thousands daily. Today, this is highway 49.
Black Bart was caught not because of his famous poetry, but because in quickly fleeing his last robbery, he left behind a handkerchief with a laundry mark that led to his capture by Wells Fargo detective James Hume and his team. Bart's poetry has been well published, and the note he wrote in this book is a part of one of his most famous notes, signed identically as those left behind at robberies, and published by Wells Frago in their "Wanted" circulars, "Po (dot) 8."
Boles was released January 21, 1888. He went to a hotel in San Francisco. There, he became obsessed with being constantly tailed by James Hume and his men. He left for the gold country, staying at a hotel in Vallecito, where one night he simply vanished, never to be seen or heard of again. A series of stage robberies occurred in the short months after his release, the last one a robbery on the stage line from Ukiah to Eureka in November, 1888. Hume thought it was Black Bart, but the evidence was sketchy. Meanwhile, Boles was constantly aware of the possibility of being "framed" by Wells Fargo.
Boles (Black Bart) Background
Boles left his home, wife and two daughters in Missouri in 1849 with his brother David in search of gold in California. The pair didn't make it to California until 1850. It is possible that their sister accompanied them, but she went her own way later in life, far apart from her two brothers, ultimately reportedly swindling Mary Boles out of her house in Hannibal, Missouri. The brothers were not successful at mining or their other California ventures and went to New York in 1851 briefly, before returning to California. David died in 1852, buried in San Francisco. After further disappointment, Boles returned to Missouri in 1854, where he and family settled in Decatur. He enlisted in the Union Army in August, 1862 and mustered out in June,1865. He breveted out as a Second Lieutenant but never filled the post. Clearly, farming was not his calling, and soon Boles headed to Idaho and Montana for the mines. Little is known of his time there, but he reportedly did write home a fair bit. In April, 1869, he bought a claim in or near Helena for $260 in gold dust. His last letter home was from Silver Bow in August, and supposedly Mary did not hear from him for the next 15 years.
Mary Boles began searching for her husband after the lack of letters after late 1869, as she may have told either Wells Fargo detectives or the San Francisco Examiner reporter in later years. It appears he changed his name slightly to Charles Bolton, an alias he infrequently used, and under which name he was later sentenced at San Quentin.
Much has been written on Black Bart. Today, rumors fly by amateur historians about Black Bart and where he went after release from San Quentin on January 21, 1888. A huge feud erupted between Hume and Examiner owner Hearst regarding Boles, outside the scope of this story.
In succeeding years, letters arose between Boles and his wife, but nothing led to his whereabouts.
The fire of misinformation and obfuscation surrounding Boles after his ultimate "disappearance" in November, 1888 was greatly fueled by modern day historical identification of several men, both in California and in New York (rumored as his birth place) who possessed the same name, including one who lived in Rattlesnake, another remote California mining community, in the early 1890s. That man, too, disappeared into history. There is a strong possibility that many of these men were actual descendants of various members of Charles Boles' family of Missouri and New York.
Richard Dillon wrote a masterful history and biography of Hume, which is, as a "first-hand record" one of the most authoritative works by far, both when it was published in 1969 and remains so today. Successive historians have also produced outstanding material, particularly Boessenecker, who had the ability of using original letters as well as the monster new technological advantage of digitized newspapers and official records. As I prepared to write this essay, I used both newspapers.com and the Library of Congress newspaper archive to dig deeply, finding that America was absolutely fascinated with Black Bart, the "Gentleman Stager Robber" during his lifetime. Virtually hundreds of articles appear during and after his incarceration, inclusive of interviews with family and friends. This must be how Kepner became fascinated with Black Bart.
The book here has the inscription written in what appears to be the same hand as is found on the original Wells Fargo & Co. published Black Bart Reward Fliers.
Black Bart Original Documents
Original documents written by Charles Boles are few and far between. His signature from his Civil War service are known, and several are in collectors' hands today. Those signatures are fully 25 or more years before the inscription in the book and the timing of his release from prison, and few individuals ever keep their signature the same over this period of time, let alone the circumstances of life.
Hume maintained that Boles changed his handwriting at will. This is an evidentiary fact easily seen in his famous note left after the robbery of the Quincy to Oroville, July 25, 1878, reproduced on the Wells Fargo "$800 Reward Arrest Stage Robber" flyer showing the note of 1878. In this document, Boles does, in fact, change and alter his handwriting seemingly at will, line after line. It has the appearance of being written by at least half a dozen different people, with left and right hand slants, constant changing of the distinctive styles of many letters; the use of the "old style" of double "s", and the use of the old style of "p" with a high post, yet changes the form of these letters at least three times, each a dramatic change. Interestingly, it is the use of that "old style" 'p' with the high post that helps us understand that the book inscription is by Bart himself.
According to Black Bart historian John Boessenecker and Wells Fargo historian Robert Chandler (now deceased), no professional historian has ever been allowed to look at all of the letters written by Boles or his wife that may still exist in Wells Fargo archives. It is unknown if San Francisco Examiner archives still exist. Mary Boles sent portions of many of his letters to not only Wells, Fargo, but to the San Francisco Examiner. Some of these are paraphrased in Dillon's work; in various newspaper articles, and in Boessenecker's book among others. Boessenecker was lucky enough to locate a relative of Boles, and he now owns several original letters from Boles to his wife. To date, eleven original handwritten letters from Charles Boles are known, either in original form or reprinted from newspaper articles. None of these are from the Wells, Fargo Collection.
The Handwriting in the Book
Fortunately, there are examples of the book's original owner's handwriting on the front fly paper. Kepner's own handwriting is a far cry, and very distinct from Boles, or that of the writing on the "Reward" poster.
With items such as this, it is nigh impossible to go back in time to ask the questions "how" and "why" this inscription appears in this specific book.
As a real life example, in my own life, we had a family friend Elizabeth Turner. She called herself "the Bookroller", making her living as a traveling library. She started out in the south, eventually moving to Pasadena, where she rented space above a large garage where she lived and held a truly great library, which ended up at UC San Diego after she passed away in the late 1960s. My Mother was Executor, and her best friend. Turner knew everybody, especially all of the pre-WW2 authors of the east and south coasts. She kept a personal scrap book, loaded with letters, poems and the like all written to her from every famous literary figure you could imagine from that time forward. Somehow, this scrap book hit the trash pile, and a young, all-too-curious kid found an interesting large binding in the trash and opened it up, and here was this magnificent scrap book, with notes etc. on who had written what and when, if it was not already present on the original pieces. Hundreds of them. The point here is that without those notes and the overall association of these items, separately, many would have been doubted by the "instant experts" that exist in today's authentication fields. Today, this book is retained in full, housed in an unknown institutional archive given from her sister, circa 1971.
Mr. Boessenecker provided me with a copy of a page and signature from one of Boles' letters to his wife. This letter provides important clues about authorship, but in the case of human handwriting, nothing here can be "cast in stone," as is the case with most people's handwriting as it changes over decades and life experiences, let alone physical changes, such as heart rate and high blood pressure, which radically alters handwriting.
Here, I'll throw out a few clues, and let the readers come to their own conclusions.
1. A lower case "c". Boles has a distinctive notch at the upper end of the "c". This is present in the book.
2. The word "to" in lower case is identical in form on both, using a heavy and elongated cross line. The lower case letter "t" in "to" has a very weak start at left in each case, almost a separation from the vertical stem.
3. In the letter, Bolers changes his style of lower case "e" several times, a clear picture of how he liked to change handwriting.
4. Lower case "p" uses a high stem
5. Letters are regularly, but somewhat randomly, exaggerated.
6. Double "e" very similar.
All of the above are departures from Kepner's handwriting.
The inscription date is even more important. As stated earlier, Hume stated not a single person had visited Boles during his incarceration until January 1, 1888. What was NOT recorded, was mail, in and out.
Did Kepner know one of the reporters who visited Black Bart? The date is far too coincidental.
Food for Thought
What's Up With Missouri?
Surely, some historian has written an essay on the "bad guys" from Missouri. The list is virtually the "Who's Who" of western outlaws. Why Missouri?
Black Bart (Charles Boiles)
Bloody Bill Anderson
William Quantrill
Jesse James, James Gang
Dalton Gang
Cole Younger, Younger brothers.
^
Date: 1888
Country (if not USA):
State: California
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