by Paul R. Spitzzeri
John Boessenecker, a San Francisco attorney and historian, has spoken twice at the Homestead regarding his very impressive books on the famed bandidos, Joaquin Murrieta and Tiburcio Vásquez, while his Gold Dust and Gunsmoke, published in 1999, was very useful to me for my master’s thesis and subsequent work on crime and criminal justice in Los Angeles County from 1850 to 1875.
A recent book of John’s, 2018’s Shotguns and Stagecoaches: The Brave Men Who Rode for Wells Fargo in the Wild West is another fine work detailing the work of 20 Wells Fargo detectives and messengers as they sought to protect valuable shipments by horseback, stagecoach and train from the Gold Rush era into the early 20th century. In addition to these compelling portraits, potential readers are advised to take note of the epilogue, which looks at Wells Fargo’s legacy, takes the giant bank to task for its scandalous operations in recent years and scores it for having “squandered that legacy in the name of pure corporate greed.”
One of the key figures featured in the book is James B. Hume (1827-1904), who went to work for Wells Fargo in 1873 after almost a decade in gold country law enforcement, including as El Dorado County sheriff. As chief special officer, Hume built a distinguished career, with Boessenecker detailing many instances of his abilities and skill during some three decades in that position. Reading about Hume’s exploits was a reminder that he and another Wells Fargo officer, Solomon D. Brastow have an important and direct tie to the Homestead’s story, as well.
As has been oft-related here, the bank of Temple and Workman, opened in November 1871 after partners William Workman, owner of the Homestead, and his son-in-law F.P.F. Temple, were bought out by Isaias W. Hellman, their partner in the firm of Hellman, Temple and Company. Workman was truly a silent owner, putting his money in the vault and his name on checks, letterhead and signs, while Temple, as president, and Managing Cashier Henry S. Ledyard oversaw day-to-day operations.
Temple and Workman appeared to be very prosperous as it rode the wave of greater Los Angeles’ first significant and sustained development boom during the first half of the Seventies, as did Hellman’s Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank. Despite a national depression that erupted in 1873 and became known as the Long Depression as it continued through the remainder of the decade, California seemed immune, due largely to the stock bubble emanating from companies prospecting for silver at Virginia City, Nevada, with San Francisco’s Bank of California a dominant financial force.
When, however, the bubble inevitably burst and, in late August 1875, the Bank of California went under, with its powerful president, William C. Ralston, found dead in San Francisco Bay, the telegraph clicked the news south and a panic broke out in the Angel City forcing a run by jittery depositors on the two banks. Hellman was in Europe, so his partner, ex-Governor John G. Downey joined forces with F.P.F. Temple to suspend operations for a month to try to calm the waters (that day, 1 September was the county election and Temple prevailed in the race for treasurer).
Furious with what Downey agreed to, Hellman raced home, stopping in New York City for gold to reinforce his reserves, and reopened Farmers’ and Merchants’, which safely navigated the turbulent economic waters. Foundering, however, was Temple and Workman and, after several trips to San Francisco to seek loans, Ledward and Temple finally found a willing lender, Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, who, however, was interested in the many thousands of acres owned by the troubled institution’s owners. In November, a deal was struck, though “on rather hard terms,” as Temple explained to Workman in a letter of the 20th that is in the Museum’s collection.
That quarter million dollars in $20 gold coins was packed into three Wells Fargo strong boxes and carried by stage from San Francisco to Los Angeles with Hume and Brastow as guards. When the valuables arrived at Caliente, a town along the Southern Pacific Railroad in Kern County near Tehachapi Pass and southwest of Bakersfield, there was someone eagerly waiting for that treasure.
Dick Fellows was an ex-convict and had a plan to strip the stagecoach of the Temple and Workman loan money. Born George Brittain Lyttle in 1845 in southern Kentucky, where his father was a lawyer, a field young George briefly studied, he headed west after the Civil War’s conclusion and ended up in the Los Angeles area, apparently raising hogs. In December 1869, however, as Fellows, he was arrested on two charges, including “stopping a man on the road near Cahuenga,” this likely being the main route, where U.S. 101 is now, through the pass of that name leading into the San Fernando Valley, “and robbing him of his pistol and money” as well as assault with the intent to kill.
In mid-January 1870, Fellows was indicted, with an additional charge of grand larceny tacked on, but, when he went to trial and was found guilty, it was on the original two counts. On the 18th before County Court Judge Ygnacio Sepúlveda, Fellows was sentenced to five years for robbery and three on assault to commit murder rap and transported to San Quentin State Prison. But, in March 1874, reported the Los Angeles Express of the 20th, “a number of letters have been filed with the County Clerk in the interest of a pardon” for Fellows and it was added that “the family . . . are highly respectable residents of Kentucky.”
Governor Newton Booth issued the order, while a later Santa Barbara press account stated that “while serving his sentence he professed conversion, united with the church and became a leader in the Sunday school. His assumed piety won the confidence of the prison clergyman and through his influence” the governor pardoned Fellows. Under his true name, Fellows registered to vote in 1874 in San Benito County, south of San Jose, where he gave his occupation as a farmer, while that news article stated “for a while behaved himself and found employment as a school teacher, but the ruling passion was too strong for him.”
What happened at Caliente looks to have been most described in the most detail by Joseph Henry Jackson, a former editor of the popular California magazine, Sunset, who then worked for San Francisco newspapers. In 1939, his examination of Fellows was published in Tintypes of Gold and included, a decade later, in Bad Company. The account of the Caliente affair is not sourced by Jackson, so we’re citing this with the caveat that there’s no way to verify Jackson’s version of events, which began with the remark,
Mr. Hume of Wells, Fargo may or may not have been surprised when it was reported to him by one his agents that Dick Fellows had been seen in town . . . Wells, Fargo was getting ready to send an unusually heavy shipment of gold by train to the end of the line, and then by stage over the rough trail through the Tehachapis to Los Angeles. That city, shocked by the suspension of the private bank of Temple & Workman, had been informed that cessation of specie payments was only temporary. On December 6, the citizens were promised, cash would again be available at the bank’s windows. It was this cash that Wells, Fargo was planning to send over the dangerous road from Caliente south . . .
Jackson continued that on 3 December, Hume received a telegram from Brastow, a superintendent with the firm, that ordered the special officer to meet the train, on which Brastow was the guard of the money along with Jerome Meyers, the police chief of Stockton, the next morning, with an hour between its arrival and the departure of the stage at 8 o’clock. Brastow and Meyers, each with a pistol, sat inside the coach with the boxes, while Hume, packing a pistol and a case with a pair each of rifles and shotguns, took his position on the outside with the driver.
While it was thought the bank funds were a secret, it was recorded that Hume noticed Fellows and a second man lurking around the train station and where the stage was collecting its cargo. As the coach headed south, Hume reportedly took out one of the shotguns and laid it across his knees just in case. The writer then stated that “Dick Fellows and his friend . . . heard no rumors of any shipment of gold . . . but it was not difficult to guess that three express boxes, each heavy enough so that two men struggled under its weight, did not contain waste paper.” It was added that, while Brastow and Meyers were unknown to Fellows, Hume certainly was not and the presence of the special officer further raised the ex-con’s suspicions about what was on the stage.
Fellows’ plan, with his unnamed compatriot, was to rent a horse, meet his partner a mile out of town and then the duo would intercept the stage in nearby hills. When, however, Fellows picked up his rental, Jackson related,
But gradually the animal, whatever its temper, must have come to know that the man on its back did not understand horses. Long before they were within sight of the rendezvous, it decided that it had had enough. Half an hour later, the owner of the stable was surprised to see his horse trot into the corral, its saddle empty. As for Dick, he had been unfortunate enough to light [land] on his head in the road. It was some time before he regained consciousness and sadly made his way back to town . . . Dick’s head hurt . . . as he spent the afternoon brooding on his ill luck.
There was, however, a north-bound stage that came in from the Angel City, so Fellows contented himself with robbing it of $1,800, but he managed to break his right leg above the ankle, while doing so. He was captured in mid-January 1876, convicted of the stage robbery and sent up to San Quentin for an eight-year hitch.
Meanwhile, recorded Jackson, “Mr. Hume had been pleased to reach Los Angeles safely with the quarter of a million dollars for the relief of the suspended bank and its depositors.” The Express of 6 December informed readers that, “the Messrs. J.B. Hume and S.D. Brastow, Wells, Fargo and Co.’s detectives, arrived in charge of the money for Temple & Workman’s bank,” adding that the pair turned around the next morning and headed for Caliente to track down the robber, that is, Fellows, of the northbound stage.
The 7 December number of the Los Angeles Star wrote of its “pleasure . . . to see a wagon arrive in front of the Temple Bank, with $250,000 in $20 gold pieces, in charge of Billy [William] Pridham [the local Wells Fargo agent] and Wells Fargo’s detectives, J.B. Hume and S.D. Brastow, the two latter gentlemen having been its custodians from San Francisco to this place” and added “it was a jolly sight.”
On the evening of the 6th, a banquet was held at the Pico House hotel to celebrate the arrival of the mass of coin and reopening, after more than three months, of Temple and Workman, with the institution’s president and the lender, Baldwin, receiving lusty cheers and toasts of champagne. The first two days of the reopening, it was reported that deposits exceeded withdrawals, in hopes that the provision of the funds would restore confidence in the institution. In its edition of the 10th, the Star asserted that,
The opening of the Temple Bank and the commencement of business [on the 1st] of the new Commercial Bank are events which we chronicle with pleasure. Money is a great deal easier than it was a week ago, and our hard times are about passing away.
The Commercial Bank was opened on Main Street by the owners of a San Diego bank of that name, along with Angel City partners, and Edward F. Spence was transferred from the southern city to run the new institution. The media was silent, however, as to any news about how the Temple and Workman bank was faring as 1875 headed toward a close.
Notably, the 22 December edition of the Express remarked that, “not discouraged by the fate of Dick Fellows, the Caliente stage robber, some highwayman threw himself before the Telegraph Stage Company’s stage going north yesterday morning, about five miles from the San Fernando station.” When the “road agent” popped open the box, “a letter from the firm of Temple & Workman to some parties in San Francisco was broken open, but, as it proved to contain nothing available to the thief it was not destroyed.”
It seems very likely that the correspondence concerned the continued hemorrhaging of the original amount loaned by Baldwin, as he soon forwarded more funds, with a total of just north of $340,000 provided to the stricken bank. When the New Year’s Day 1876 issue of the Los Angeles Herald was published and the Angel City’s banks were discussed, it was claimed that,
The Bank of which Messrs. Temple & Workman are proprietors, has the confidence of the community. Both the proprietors are men of large wealth, so that the depositors are amply protected. The firm hold which this institution has upon the confidence of the community was fully illustrated during the late panic . . . when the coin was forthcoming [from Baldwin] and the doors [re]opened, not only was there no rush for it, but several capitalists testified their faith by making large deposits. The institution is now in a prosperous condition increasing its business from day to day.
Within two weeks, however, this proved to be a very faulty and impossibly rosy and optimistic statement, as, on 13 January, Workman and Temple put a notice on the doors of the institution announcing its closure. That day’s Express informed readers that, the prior evening, “a meeting of the leading bankers was held to consider the situation, with what result had not yet transpired.” Unlike in late August, it was said that the closure “resulted in but a small crowd” and not “the least appearance of excitement” and it was added that “this arose from the fact that difficulties were expected in the career of the Bank, notwithstanding the opportune interposition of Mr. Baldwin.”
Notably, it was remarked that there was general sympathy of the owners, who were apparently seen “to a certain extent, [as] the victim of circumstances,” especially Temple who “has for years held an honored position in our community,” so that the paper commented that “during his misfortunes, he has the sympathy of the majority of our people.” The heads of the Commercial, Los Angeles County (a savings institution) and Farmers’ and Merchants’ banks expressed confidence that the effects would be temporary and muted and it was remarked that “the other banks of Los Angeles are regarded as on an impregnable footing,” so that “the feeling in the community at large is sanguine and hopeful.”
Of course, the affairs of Temple and Workman were placed in the hands of assignees and an inventory conducted, handled by Daniel Freeman, a real estate partner of Temple, and Spence, and, when its contents were revealed, the attitude of many Angelenos was far from “sanguine and hopeful” and here was the opposite of “the least appearance of excitement.” While no other banks failed, the Long Depression continued and the economic climate in greater Los Angeles did not materially improve for several years, until the early 1880s. Later came the Boom of the Eighties and a new era for our region.
As for Fellows, he got into trouble very soon after his 1881 pardon and release and was captured after another stage robbery attempt at Los Alamos in northern Santa Barbara County, for which he was convicted. This time, the serial offender was handed a life term, first serving at Folsom and then San Quentin. After just more than a quarter century, though, the Los Angeles Record of 7 March 1908 briefly reported that “Dick Fellows, 63, confined at San Quentin [and Folsom] since 1882 for robbing express messenger[s], was pardoned . . . He has never given authorities any trouble and has been librarian and instructor at prison.”
He promptly returned to his home area of southern Kentucky and reinvented himself as “Professor George B. Lyttle,” an instructor of Spanish. He claimed that he was part of a South America survey party in 1891, though he was definitely domiciled at Folsom then, probably saying this to bolster his bona fides. For a time, he was a traveling salesperson at Louisville and, late in life, announced that he was going to México in the employ of a Cincinnati firm, though that did not take place.
On 2 January 1924, it was reported that Lyttle/Fellows died after having failed to recover from an operation, though he planned further Spanish courses. An obituary stated that “‘Professor’ Lyttle was a traveler and scholar” and that “the internment was in the family burying ground near Cedar Crag,” though Find-a-Grave lists his final resting place as Lancaster Cemetery. In any case, it is probably unsurprising that nothing was said in his obituaries about his long criminal career and prison residencies in far-flung California!
Thanks to John for his great book and his highlighting of the work of Hume as a chief special officer for Wells Fargo, as it provided an opportunity to tie Hume to the delivery of loaned Baldwin funds to the Temple and Workman bank, which is an core part of an essential element of the Homestead’s interpretation!