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I don’t want your money, only the express box and mail.
Before automobiles, telephones, and airplanes, stagecoaches linked the isolated mining towns of the Old West. While passengers bounced and swayed inside drafty, dusty coaches, valuables were stowed under the driver’s seat in a sturdy green wooden box of Wells, Fargo & Company. The box was encircled by an iron strap and secured with a heavy padlock. The box weighed 25 pounds when empty. People called it the “treasure box” for all the wealth it contained.
Robbers set their sights on those distinctive green boxes. Many thieves were chased off, wounded, or even killed by drivers or guards. Those who escaped were relentlessly tracked down by James B. Hume, Wells Fargo’s chief detective, a fearless but fair former sheriff. His job was to chase down anyone foolish enough to rob a Wells Fargo stagecoach. He always lived up to the company’s motto—“Wells Fargo never forgets.” Jim Hume was very busy. In 1875 alone, Wells Fargo stagecoaches were stopped 34 times by robbers, with a total of $87,000 (worth nearly $2 million today) stolen.
On July 26, 1875, driver John Shine slowly guided his stagecoach up Funk Hill, a steep mountain road near Copperopolis, California. He knew this part of the trip from Sonora to Milton, California, was especially hard on the horses. Without warning, a ghostlike figure jumped out from behind a large boulder in front of the huffing horses and blocked the stagecoach’s path. Shine brought the horses to a quick stop. The figure crouched low, using the horses as a shield. Menacingly, he aimed a double-barreled shotgun at the driver.
Shine stared at the strange-looking figure before him. The bandit wore a long white duster (a type of lightweight coat), and his shoes were wrapped in rags. Only his eyes were visible through two holes cut out of the flour sack that covered his face. Comically, a dark derby, or bowler, hat sat on his head, placed at a jaunty angle.
Stagecoach drivers like John Shine were a tough group. They had to be strong, resourceful, and in command. Perhaps the best known and respected among them was Henry James “Hank” Monk. Mark Twain, in his book Roughing It, humorously—and with a bit of exaggeration—related the time when Monk drove the stage carrying famed New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley, who coined the phrase “Go West, young man”:
Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—said he warn’t in as much of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said, “Keep your seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!”—and you bet he did, too, what was left of him!
Legendary driver Hank Monk and his stagecoach.
“Please throw down the box,” the robber politely ordered in a booming voice. As Shine reached beneath his seat to struggle with the heavy box at his feet, the bandit turned slightly and shouted toward the boulders above, “If he makes a move, give him a volley, boys.” Shine glanced upward and caught sight of gun barrels aimed at the stagecoach from behind the boulders. Unarmed and concerned with the safety of the passengers aboard, the driver had no choice. Down went the green Wells Fargo express box and a canvas United States Mail sack.
The Wells Fargo treasure box.
Inside the coach, one of the passengers drew his gun and prepared to shoot at the masked robber. Another warned him to put the gun away. “Do you want to get us all killed?” he asked. When one frightened passenger threw her purse out the stagecoach window, the robber picked it up and handed it back. “No, Ma’am,” he graciously said. “I don’t want your money, only the express box and mail.” Then he yelled toward the driver, “That will be about all, boys. Hurry along now and good luck to you.” As the stagecoach moved forward, Shine observed the robber on the ground working to open the express box with a hatchet.
Almost at once, the robber was surprised by a second stagecoach lumbering up the hill. With the hatchet in one hand he raised the shotgun toward driver Donald McLean, who brought the stage to a stop. “Please throw down the box,” the robber shouted. But this coach did not carry an express box, so the masked robber allowed it to go on its way as he continued to hack away at the box on the ground.
Shine drove the stage a short distance uphill and stopped. McLean’s coach arrived within minutes. Looking around to make sure the robber was not nearby, Shine dropped to the ground. Slowly and carefully, he inched his way on foot back down the road to retrieve the empty express box. As he neared the site of the holdup he looked up. The gun barrels were still there and pointing directly at him. Shine held his breath, expecting bullets to fly. When nothing happened, he moved forward step-by-step and made a startling discovery. There were no hidden bandits. The “guns” were just sticks made to look like gun barrels. Shine picked up the now empty box and mail sack, returned to his stagecoach, and rushed on to Copperopolis to seek help.
The local Wells Fargo agent telegraphed Sheriff Benjamin Thorn of Calaveras County and Wells Fargo detective James B. Hume, who eventually arrived with a posse, a group of armed men organized by the sheriff. There were no tracks to follow and only one clue. Hume noticed that the mail sack was slashed open in an unusual way, forming an upside-down letter T. There wasn’t much money taken from the now empty express box, but that didn’t matter to Hume, who posted this notice when he returned to town:
REWARD! Wells, Fargo & Co.’s express box containing $160 in gold notes, was robbed this morning…. $250 and one-fourth of any money recovered, will be paid for the arrest and conviction of the robber.
A traveling stagecoach scene.
No trace of the robber was found. This was Jim Hume’s first contact with him. It would not be the last.
Wells Fargo reward poster after the July 26, 1875, robbery.
