(CRIME) A confidential Wells Fargo reward poster along with

Sale 2368 - Lot 100

Price Realized: $ 1,500

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800

(CRIME.) A confidential Wells Fargo reward poster, along with an internal letter on the bandit's arrest. Letterpress broadside, 11 x 8 1/2 inches; signed in type by J.B. Hume as Wells Fargo special officer * Letter Signed from Dudley Evans as superintendent of the Wells Fargo Northern Division office to John J. Valentine as general superintendent in San Francisco, one page, same size. Each with minor wear, pin holes, mount remnants on verso, folds, and inked "received' stamps from the San Francisco office dated 20 August 1883. Portland, OR, 15 and 18 August 1883

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

The poster is headlined "Arrest Stage Robbers! $1200 Reward!!" under a note advising that "Agents will place these circulars in the hands of local officers and discreet citizens. Don't post!" The poster seeks the arrest of Clark Melville alias Denver and an unidentified accomplice, who had held up a stagecoach in Josephine County in southern Oregon twelve days previous. The suspect is described at great length, having been born in London but prone to boasting of his years in Denver, "by which name he is well known amongst the Rail Road Camps from Glendale to Siskiyou Mountains."
The poster is accompanied by a letter to the Wells Fargo headquarters explaining that "Denver" had been arrested in Douglas County, OR for an unrelated crime, and requesting that a warrant be served for the stagecoach robbery in case the suspect made bail.