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| The American Stamp Club of Great Britain |
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The American Stamp Club of Great Britain was founded in 1954. There are over 400 members from all over the world. |
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| Stagecoaches fared well despite frequent robberies |
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| by Herman Herst, Jr.* |
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A call at the Collectors Club in New York should be on the itinerary of every visitor to the City. It lies in the heart of New York at 22 East 35th Street, just off Madison Avenue. Even better is to time the visit to coincide with one of the Club's regular meetings. The local telephone number for enquiries is 638-0559.
One exhibit you might ask to see is the "treasure box" carried on a stagecoach which was shot open by a bandit during a stagecoach robbery. If I recall correctly it was the famed "Black Bart" who did the trick.
Some day Hollywood will discover Black Bart; a robber with the flair for the unusual. He liked to write poetry, and after each robbery he would leave a poem with the victims. He was courteous to lady passengers, but he relieved all men of their wallets and valuables.
Wells Fargo and Company assigned one man full-time to capture him. The surprise came when he was finally caught. He turned out to be a supposedly reputable San Francisco lawyer who doubled as a bandit. He might never have been caught, but in making his getaway after one robbery, the handkerchief that covered his face blew away and he was traced by the Chinese laundry marks on it.
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| 1893 Columbian Exposition card showing the Mines Building. |
Actually, there are more stagecoach robbers killed on television every night than during the half-century or so that the private express companies carried mail and treasure in the far west. If one were to be guided by our television programmes, no stagecoach driver would have ever lived to enjoy old age. The truth is a bit different.
At the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893, Wells Fargo and Company had an historical exhibit. Most of the items shown at that time are presently on display at the Wells Fargo Museum in Downtown San Francisco, another "must" for philatelic visitors to the City where many people have left their heart. I understand that another similar museum is being opened in Los Angeles, to display the surplus material from the San Francisco Museum.
Although a San Francisco bank used the stagecoach motif as its trademark, there is no direct connection between the financial institution and the stagecoach company that existed in the last century.
Visitors to the exhibit in 1893 were given a booklet detailing the history of Wells Fargo and Company. It included a section on the period when stagecoach activity was at its zenith, between November 1870 and November 1884.
Those years were fateful one for the booming west. The Indian Wars were ending; the last one, the Modoc War in Oregon, was still in the future, but most of the Indians were on reservations. Law had come to the "wild west". Railroads burgeoned, bringing rapid transportation to towns previously approached only by horses. Most importantly the transfer of funds by telegraph made the actual carriage of gold overland unnecessary.
A booklet was distributed at the Exposition with some interesting statistics. The total loss incidental to stagecoach robberies in the fourteen-year period was $927,756.65, or less than the million dollars some television stories mention as being on one stagecoach. In that period there were 313 attempts to rob stagecoaches, all but 34 being successful. There were only 23 robberies of Wells Fargo and Company offices or stations, and four attempted train robberies.
In casualties the bloodshed was happily far less in historical retrospect than is shown on television. Two Wells Fargo and Company personnel met death in those fourteen years, and six were wounded. In addition, four stagecoach drivers were wounded, but none were killed. The robbers did not do so well. Sixteen were killed during attempted robberies, and seven were hanged by outraged citizens.
Horses fared badly also; seven were killed during hold-ups and fourteen stolen. Although horse stealing was a serious offence, some robbers preferred not to leave the means of pursuit at the scene of their crime.
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| * Herman (Pat) Herst Jr is sadly no longer with us, but for many years was a member of the American Stamp Club, and was awarded honorary membership for his services to the Club. |
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| Reprinted with permission from The Mayflower, journal of the American Stamp Club of Great Britain |
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