The Infamous Stagecoach Robber A.P. Hamilton
By Debra Staab
Santa Cruz Mountain residents fight an ongoing battle against porch pirates and mail theft. I’ve even heard of thieves who yanked out entire banks of mailboxes with a truck and a chain to pilfer cash and checks that can be forged. But, challenges to mail and package delivery in our area are not new. Between the 1850s and 1880s, during the stagecoach era, drivers, locals, and travelers alike were often accosted by robbers as they journeyed between San Jose, Los Gatos, and Santa Cruz.
Besides passengers, stages frequently carried the U.S. Mail, locked steel bank boxes, and even gold. Wells Fargo Bank ran their own fleet of coaches. The vehicles ranged in comfort from a basic mud wagon to the more luxurious Concord coach which had padded seats and room for luggage on its roof. The wagons were pulled by four to six horses, and it took most of the day to travel between Santa Cruz and San Jose. Even the largest and most comfortable stagecoaches transported only about a dozen riders at a time. Several coach companies serviced the mountain corridor.
It didn’t take long for nefarious types to learn the daily stage schedules, and they soon devised clever plans to rob the coaches for easy money. One such deviant was A. P. Hamilton, also known as Al or Albert Hamilton. He had joined the army as a teen, but by 1867 he deserted, forged his orders, stole a horse, and changed his name to Henry Tarlton. After a long and difficult chase, Tarlton was apprehended and sent to San Quentin under the name Albert Tarlton.
After Tarlton’s release from prison in 1872, he worked a few odd jobs before making friends with a man named Peter Carr. Tarlton had stolen a shotgun from his last employer, and the two men decided to rob the Pioneer Stage Line between San Jose and Santa Cruz. They walked north just past the summit where the southbound stage generally stopped to take a break and let the passengers walk along the grade. The robbers’ ploy saw them tie a rope across the road to stop the coach while they hid in the bushes beside the trail.
As the four-horse wagon approached the rope, Tarlton, wearing a flannel mask and a knife dangling from his wrist, jumped out of the bushes with his shotgun pointed at the driver and demanded the Wells Fargo cash box. Much to his dismay, the driver announced that he was not carrying any cash box. Instead he threw down two bags of mail, which the robber immediately kicked aside. Tarlton and Carr wanted money and commanded the passengers to give up their coins, wallets, and watches, which they did promptly. In the end, the robbers collected a mere $45 in spite of all their efforts. It was April 1, 1874, April Fool’s Day.
Before the end of the month, on April 28, Tarlton and Carr struck again just a few miles east of Patchen in a more remote part of the mountains. This time both men held shotguns, had knives dangling from their wrists, and wore dark masks with holes for their eyes and mouth. Tarlton stepped in front of the coach, and Carr stood his ground to stop the horses. Circling the wagon, Tarlton ordered the passengers to give up their coins, wallets, and watches as he did previously. And, like the last robbery, the two thieves got very little reward for their attempt. Just as they were going to force a man out of the carriage to be searched, the horses started to fidget. The robbers reluctantly let the coach go on, and the man was able to keep the sixty dollars he had squirreled under his seat.
As soon as the stage reached the coast, the driver reported the incident to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff who immediately telegraphed the Santa Clara County Sheriff. Both law enforcement agencies sent out scouts and agreed to meet at the Summit that evening. The groups searched late into the night and reached Mountain Charley's cabin at 3 am where they ate and rested until dawn. At daybreak the posse headed for Jones Creek where they finally found the fugitives hiding in an old barn. With the help of Mountain Charley’s Henry rifle, Tarlton was wounded and he and Carr surrendered. All of the loot was recovered and the prisoners were taken to Santa Clara County Courthouse where they were tried and convicted. Carr and Tarlton, who was back to using the name A.P. Hamilton, were both sentenced to 10 year terms at San Quentin.
Now considered a career criminal, Hamilton immediately began scheming with his three new cell mates to make an escape. They crafted a fake lock out of paper, pried the actual lock off the door, and when the guard fell asleep, they calmly walked out of their cell, scaled the walls, and disappeared.
Hamilton stayed out of sight for a while, but by the following spring of 1875 he was back at his trade. In April he robbed the Well Fargo cash box at Grass Valley, and in May he got another Wells Fargo express box in Ione. Sixteen days later he was apprehended in San Francisco, and once again he was sent to San Quentin.
Unbelievably, Hamilton’s next move was to start a letter writing campaign asking for clemency. A year later, the governor of California reduced his sentence, and in 1879 he was free once again. His most recent cell mate, Roger O’Meara, in prison for grand larceny, was released about the same time. Not surprisingly, the two met up and plotted their next crime spree.
In the spring of 1880 Hamilton and O’Meara headed to Calaveras County where they stole the cash box from the San Andreas stage. The next week they tried but failed to rob the stage at Ione. In May they successfully filched another Wells Fargo cash box from the Georgetown to Placerville stage. Hamilton was wounded during the encounter, and both men fled California. O’Meara was eventually captured in St. Louis on a burglary charge. Hamilton managed to slip away and was never seen or heard from again.
The book Perilous Trails, Dangerous Men documents over 30 career stagecoach robbers who terrorized Californians between 1856 and 1900. All were men, some collaborated to improve their success rate, and many lived within the crime to prison cycle their whole lives. By the 1880s trains replaced the stagecoach and robbers devised new ways to make a buck. The advent of the armored car in the early 1900s reduced theft during the movement of cash from one place to another. Today we use locking mailboxes, safe deposit boxes, tracking apps, and security cameras to watch over our personal mail and packages. Some of the best advice for protecting your post comes from neighborhood watch groups who say, “If you see something, then say something”.
Sources:
Secrest, William B. Perilous Trails, Dangerous Men. 2003. Pp. 82-89.