Dick Fellows

The Unlucky Outlaw

Contributed By Kiniksu Kid

10-17-01


 In December 1875 the train ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles stopped in Caliente. Caliente was the end of the track as the roadbed was being constructed over the Tehachapi Mountains. Travel for passengers and freight ended there. On Dec. 4, 1875,Dick Fellows stood in a crowd of onlookers and watched $240,000 in gold coins transferred from a train to a waiting stagecoach for the journey on to a Los Angeles bank. While the money was being loaded onto the stagecoach, James Hume scanned the crowd and spotted Fellows whom. in November1875, had checked into a Bakersfield hotel under the name Richard Perkins.

During his years as a Wells Fargo detective, Hume had made it a special point to personally become acquainted with those arrested for crimes against the company, and Fellows was no exception. Hume expected a robbery attempt after the coach left Caliente. The stagecoach left Caliente with no passengers -- just four armed guards and the money on board. Fellows believed he could still rob the coach if he could surprise the coach driver and guards on a turn of the mountain road. He rented a horse from the livery stable and rode out of town, following the stagecoach. However, within a half mile of town his horse threw him off and returned to the stable. After regaining his senses, Fellows walked back to Caliente and took the train to Bakersfield.

Fellows thought he could successfully rob the stagecoach when it made its return trip to Caliente from Los Angeles. He rented a horse from a stable in Bakersfield and rode to a point on the road above Caliente near Tehachapi and waited for the stagecoach. It arrived, and Fellows stopped it. Armed and masked, he ordered the express box thrown to the road. But while Fellows was trying to get the heavy box up on his horse, the animal bolted and ran away. As night closed in, Fellows dragged the box off the road into the brush. In the dark, he fell some 12 feet off an embankment, where workers had been excavating for a railroad bed. He broke his leg. In intense pain, Fellows broke open the box and took $1,800. He crawled to a small stream for a drink of water and then on to a nearby farm where he stole a horse and saddle. He rode down to the valley flatlands. In the meantime, the farmer missed his property and alerted the officers who had been pursuing Fellows. He was overtaken east of Bakersfield and arrested. The $1,800 was recovered.

In Kern County Superior Court on Jan. 9, 1876, Fellows pleaded guilty to stagecoach robbery and was sentenced to eight years in San Quentin Prison. However, before he could be delivered to the penitentiary, the prisoner escaped from jail. Hobbling on crutches, Fellows went south of Bakersfield to the Cox farm, where he hoped to steal a horse for a ride to Los Angeles. He went to the door and was invited in by the Cox family for breakfast. However, while eating his meal, he was arrested by three Cox farmhands who recognized him from reward poster descriptions. Fellows was transported to San Quentin Prison, where he served his sentence until pardoned by the governor on May 16, 1881.

Dick Fellows was, next to the famous Black Bart, California's most successful stagecoach robber. Wells Fargo Express Co. claimed that Fellows successfully completed between eight and 10 stage robberies. Yet he is regarded as a pathetic bungler, and as such is believed to be a failure in the road agent business.