Ben Thorn

When one thinks of the lawmen of the Old West, such figure as Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok and Pat Garrett come to  mind.  Each of them established their reputations as peace officers long after the California Gold Rush.

The Gold Rush not only produced America's most violent frontier, it also produced some of the frontier's finest lawmen.  But few western peace officers could match the skill, daring, and longevity of Ben Thorn, the iron-willed lawman of Calaveras County.

Ben Thorn served continuously as a law officer in Calaveras County from 1855 until his retirement almost half a century later, in 1903.  During his long career he captured scores of dangerous outlaws including the mankiller "Longhair Sam" Brown, and in 1883 played a prominent role in the manhunt for Charles E. Boles, alias Black Bart, America's most prolific stagecoach robber.  He took part in numerous hair-raising gun battles, and superstitious Mexicans and Indians came to believe that he led a charmed life and that no knife or bullet could kill him.

Benjamin Kent Thorn was born in Plattsburg, New York, on December 22 1829.  In 1849 he joined the Gold Rush to California.  He began mining on the Yuba River in the Northern Mines, but by 1850 he drifted south to the diggings in Calaveras County where he would spend the rest of his life.

Ned Bushyhead, constable of El Dorado Mining District in 1850's worked with Ben Thorn in law enforcement may times.  He was the lead man in capture of Bill Holt, a well known outlaw in the McKinney Diggins - Cave City area.  They worked together on many jobs including the hanging in old El Dorado December 1864, and the stage coach hold-up in 1892.

Ben Thorn's first law enforcement experience began in the spring of 1853, when, like hundreds of other miners in Calaveras County, he helped search for the rampaging gang of bandidos led by Joaquin Murrieta.

Ben Thorn soon became noted for reckless bravado, and on April 15, 1855, Charles A. Clarke, sheriff of Calaveras County, appointed him a deputy.

It was not long before the young Deputy Thorn tackled one of the worst bands of toughs in the gold region.  Their leader was Longhair Sam Brown.  San Brown fled Mariposa and soon turned up in Calaveras County at the head of a band of gamblers and hardcases.  On July 8, 1855, while running a monte game in Upper Calaveritas, Longhair Sam and a comrade, Hugh "Bunty" Owens, got into a row with several gamblers.

A bystander raced to Ben Thorn's mining claim at San Antonio camp and reported the killings.  Thorn, after obtaining warrants for the arrest of Brown and Owens, started after the killers with a fellow miner, Ed Hopkins.  They rode all night in search and by daybreak learned that the bad men were holed up with four other members of the gang in a cabin on O'Neill Creek.

Thorn and Hopkins took the pair to a sawmill on San Antonio Creek owned by Orrin Spencer, the justice of the peace.

Within a few months after his capture of San Brown, Ben Thorn was again in the saddle after dangerous outlaws.  On August 6, 1855, in the so-called Rancheria Tragedy, a gang of Hispanic bandits raided the mining camp of Rancheria in Amador County, just north of Calaveras.

There they learned that Calaveras County Sheriff Charles Clarke had caught up with the mounted bandits at Texas Bar on the Calaveras River.  Clarke and his men, one of whom was undoubtedly Ben Thorn, had engaged the bandidos in a sharp gunfight and managed to shoot and capture one of them.

One of Ben Thorn's most notable exploits was his encounter with Santiago Molino, a dangerous desperado who reported to have killed six men in the mining country.  Ben trailed and killed Molino.
Just a few of the many exploits of Ben Thorn, a true Western Lawman.

After the Gold Rush many forty-niners drifted on to new mining frontiers.  Ben Thorn, however, stayed, married built a mansion (which is still standing) in San Andreas, raised two daughters and became a power in local politics.

He served as undersheriff for Sheriff Bob Paul from 1860 to 1864 and was sheriff of Calaveras County from 1868 to 1876, then worked as a Wells, Fargo detective, and again was county sheriff from 1880 to 1903.

During the 1880's and 1890's he was, next to his friend Tom Cunningham of Stockton, the most famous sheriff in California.  When he died on November 15, 1905,, the San Francisco Call gave simple but elegant praise:  "In the days when laws were loose, when the bandit, the stage robber, and the horse thief abounded, when life was cheap and men lived in the frontier stage of existence, Thorn's name was a terror to the criminal."

Outlaws of El Dorado

The most famous dirty deed of note locally was the attempted stage hold-up and murder on Mountain Ranch Road in April of 1892 where 15 year old Johanna Rodesino was killed.  She is buried in Mountain Ranch.  No treasure was taken and the bandit was never apprehended.

In Dec. of 1864 a Chinaman stabbed a storekeeper in Cave City and he was brought to El Dorado after his capture.  The storekeeper died so the good people of El Dorado hung the Chinaman.  It is believed the huge oak tree across from the Blunder Inn is that tree.

In 1883 that iron-willed lawman of Calaveras County played a prominent role in the manhunt for Charles E. Boles, alias Black Bart.  Ben Thorn’s first law job was in the spring of 1853 when he helped search for Joaquin Murrieta.   Joaquin spent time in old El Dorado getting supplies, especially from the bakery operated by Julin Paterey which was located behind the present candle shop.

Ben was involved in the capture of long hair Sam Brown in 1855 which started in Upper Calaveritas and ended on O’Neil Creek.

Ben Thorn died on Nov. 15th, 1905 and was a law officer in Calaveras County for 50 years.  His home still stands in San Andreas today.

In 1851 at Whiskey Slide, just north of Mountain Ranch, a miner was found murdered in his cabin one morning.  The whole place had been ransacked.   Fifteen years later another miner came and built a new cabin on the hill.  He heard from a dying companion that the murdered man had hidden his treasures under the floor of the cabin.

The man who built the second cabin finally found the gold over $10,000 worth... but then became obsessed by the idea that the gold was haunted.   At last, in terror he reburied it, shortly after telling his story he went mad and was confined in the Stockton Asylum, where he died.  No one has ever reported finding this hidden treasure.  Another tale of the Gold Rush days that lies buried forever.

The San Andreas Independent of Dec. 4, 1858, tells of a desperate fight at El Dorado in which two Americans were killed.  Two Mexicans escaped but the third was captured.  He was later freed for want of sufficient testimony.   The Mexicans did not live in El Dorado.  Because of early racial problems with the Mexicans in San Andreas, very few were ever known to live and work near El Dorado or  Mountain Ranch.

As early as 1849 Ned Bushyhead, born in the Cherokee Nation, was the constable  of El Dorado Mining District.  Before 1849 El Dorado Camp was a gathering place for individuals looking to get away from the law.  These were just rough and tumble gentlemen who did not want to tow the line when it came to  community betterment ideas.


There were many law abiding citizens in El Dorado so as a complete community we were pretty safe.  The Zwinge family was involved in law enforcement for a couple generations.

So if you are lucky enough to live in Mountain Ranch, then you are lucky enough.

Black Bart in Mountain Ranch?

Sat. Nov. 3, 1883 was cold and clear with a sharp wind.  R.E. McConnell, driver for the Nevada Stage Company had been up early preparing for his run to Milton from Sonora.  He was carrying no passengers, only a small amount of gold coin and 228 ounces of amalgam (a gold and mercury mixture).

After Jimmy Rolleri had taken McConnell and his stage acress the Stanislaus River on the ferry he operated, he suggested that he ride over to Copperopolis with him, hoping he could find something to shoot.

As the stage stared up Funk Hill, Jimmy got off in hopes he would find better game.  He could cut cross country and meet the stage on the other side.  As  McConnell neared the top of Funk Hill he turned his head to look at some movement in the bushes and he looked straight into the muzzle of a shotgun.

Black Bart had been watching the stage through a powerful field glass and he saw a driver and a boy on the front seat.  Between the hillside and his position Jimmy had dismounted.   When the stage drew up and was halted by Bart, his face concealed by a flour sack slipped over his head, at once demanded:  “Where’s the other man.”

McConnell said he had gone hunting and that it was a boy not a man,, to which Bart responded in his usual deep voice, “Get Down.”  Bart did not use his usual command of “Throw down the box” because he knew that in this case the chest was inside the stage and fastened securely to the floor.  Bart had visited the Patterson Mine earlier in the week and found out all the details of the shipment.

McConnell dismounted and unhitched as he was told.  Bart ordered him to take his horses on up the hill and over the crest out of sight.  Bart then hammered open the treasure box with an old axe he carried just for this purpose.

McConnell could hear Bart hammering away at the box so he did not hear the movement in the brush until Jimmy Rolleri was almost upon him  He attracted Jimmy’s attention and signaled him to walk in detour around the foot of the hill and come to him out of sight of Black Bart.  Jimmy was a smart boy so he knew something was wrong.  

When Jimmy got up to the driver they made their way to the crest of the hill just as Black Bart was backing out of the stage with his treasure.  They fired three shots with Jimmy’s rifle.

On the last shot Bart stumbled and dropped a bundle but held on to the sack and disappeared into the brush.

McConnell and Jimmy gathered up what had been scattered, hitched up and drove to Copperopolis to report.  Wires were sent to the Calaveras County Sheriff at San Andreas and Wells Fargo and Co. at San Francisco.

Sheriff Ben K. Thorn was a quite thorough man.  He found many clues, a leather case for field glasses, a belt, a quartz  magnifying glass, a razor, a handkerchief, two linen cuffs, and two flour sacks.  He also found the laundry mark on the handkerchief .F.X.0.7.

Sheriff Ben Thorn, J.B. Hume of Wells, Fargo and Co., his special detective Harry Morse , and Capt. Stone of the San Francisco police went to work on the case.  In just one week Nov. 12th the mark was traced to a laundry at 316 Bush St., San Francisco, operated by Thomas C. Ware.  The mark belongs to a Mr. C.E. Bolton, a mining man  A family bible and discharge from the 116th Illinois Volunteer Infantry listed his name as Charles E. Boles. 

Mr Bolton was a man dressed elegantly, carrying a little cane.  He wore a small Derby hat, a diamond pin, a large diamond ring, and a heavy gold watch and chain.  He was five feet seven inches tall, straight, broad shoulders with blue eyes and a large gray mustache.

Bart was arrested and taken to San Andreas.  Sheriff Thorn met the boat at Stockton along with a large group of curious.  Bart was photographed at Stockton adn kept in jail overnight.  The next morning they started early for San Andreas by way of Milton.  At San Andreas there was another crowd who for the first minute or two mistook  Morse for Black Bart and took the well dressed prisoner for the detective.  This seemed to please Bart a great deal.  Bart was kept in the San Andreas jail.

On Nov. 16th, Bart appeared before Justice P.H. Kean of San Andreas and said he wanted to plead guilty.  On the next day Bart was brought before Judge C.V. Gottschalk and asked the court to pronounce judgement.  The minutes of these proceedings read:  “Whereas the said C.E. Bolton has been duly convicted of robbery by his own confession, it is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed that the said C.E. Bolton be punished by imprisonment in the state prison of Calif. for the term of six years.”

Sheriff Thorn escorted Bart to San Quentin Prison on Nov. 21, 1883.  He was committed as prisoner number 11046.  Bart settled into prison routine and was a model prisoner.

On Jan. 21, 1888 Charles E. Bolton was released from San Quentin, his term completed, the law satisfied.  There is no sound proof that anybody anywhere ever saw Black Bart again.  There were many stories of stage hold-ups and personal visits by Black Bart but nothing was ever proven.  It is a matter of record, however, that Bolton spent much of the two years of his parole in Calaveras County after his release.

Charles E. Bolton was born in New York in 1828.  His early years remain a mystery as do his later ones.  He came to CA as a young man in 1850 to seek his fortune in mining like so many young men of his day.  He left a wife and two daughters behind in Hannibal, Mo.  In 1863 he returned to serve in the 116th Illinois Volunteer Infantry during the civil war.  In 1865 he again returned to CA to teach school in Concord, CA but lost this job due to his fondness for gambling.  For the next 10 years he traveled northern CA never holding one job very long.

On July 26th, 1875 the Milton-Sonora stage was held up and this is where Bart left his famous poem;

“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 bitches”

Over two years later he held up his second stage on Aug. 3rd, 1877 on the Russian River.  Here he left his second poem and his last.  In Black Bart’s twenty eight stage hold-ups he wrote only two poems, but they were enough to earn him the title of PO-8 for the rest of his life.  His second poem was;

“Here I lay me down to sleep

To wait the coming morrow

Perhaps success, perhaps defeat

And everlasting sorrow

Let come what will I’ll try it on 

My condition can’t be worse

And if there’s money in that box

‘Tis munny in my purse”

Two men claim to have seen Black Bart following his release from prison in 1888.  John Ross has a picture that supposedly shows Bart in about 1892.  It was taken at the Union Copper Mine  Boarding House in Copperopolis.  The small boy in the picture is Ross.  

According to Ross’s father, the highly respected Gilbert Ross, Bart came to visit his friends in Copperopolis and this picture was taken.

Romi Rolleri says that he also saw Bart when he visited Angels Camp after his release.  Rolleri says that Bart came and stayed at the old Calaveras Hotel in Angels Camp

Bart came to see Jim Rolleri who had been instrumental in Bart’s arrest and conviction .  Jim Rolleri had died while Bart was in prison, but one of his brothers revisited the site of the robbery on Funk Hill with Black Bart.  The visit was common knowledge with the old timers in Angels Camp according to Romi.

In Sept. of 1968 both the Stockton Record and the Calaveras Enterprise reported that Phil D. Alberts discovered, on his property in Mountain Ranch, Calaveras County, a smooth moss-covered stone at the head of a mound of dirt and rocks that resembled a grave site.  An initial has been chiseled on the stone.  Initial “B”.  Its location remains a well-guarded secret.

Alberts himself a historical writer, has made inquiry among many of the old timers in the area who might have some knowledge of what definitely appears to be a grave.  No one can recall a local buried on the property.  Until Alberts purchased the land a few years ago it had been part of the Domenghini Ranch since 1872, and before that it had belonged to a man named Pugini.

For many years there has been more than a little speculation among old timers here that Black Bart was secretly buried in Calaveras by well-meaning friends to prevent  possible desecration of his grave or body, as was done in the case of Joaquin Murietta.

Those who follow this theory say that Bart was pleased with the use of his initials and often used them instead of a full signature.  They contend that the simple letter “B” would have pleased Charles Bolton, alias Black Bart.

Even if it does not contain the remains of Black Bart, the grave still presents a mystery, and, who knows, perhaps the ghost of Black Bart is close to Mountain Ranch and the Ghost from Dirty Gulch than many suspect.

Phil D. Alberts, 

“the Ghost from Dirty Gulch”