The Results Were Deadly for One of Them. The other two faced long stints in Folsom State Prison.
Wells Fargo expressman William Hendricks loaded his shotgun and climbed aboard the stagecoach in Angels Camp on May 19, 1894, for the 20- mile jaunt to Milton, a stop on the Stockton run. The stage carried an undisclosed amount of cash, but to convey the appearance of no money on board, Hendricks took a middle seat inside the coach, while passenger Lillie Stowell of Angels Camp sat atop the stage beside driver Fred Wesson. Hendricks was not a regular Wells Fargo guard, and he had never had cause to raise his shotgun in the few previous runs he had made in California’s mother lode country. But the inexperienced part-timer was ready and willing to put his life on the line if necessary. On this day, it soon became necessary.
Inside the coach with Hendricks were male passengers Emil Mohr, T.T. Hume and George Pierce and two teenage girl passengers—Marie Bonney and another young lady identified only as “Miss Bray.” The trip west toward Milton was uneventful until a masked man stepped out from behind a tree with a cocked shotgun in hand. He lifted the gun upward in an apparent signal for the stage driver to stop. “There is a robber!” said one of the girls. Hendricks did not hesitate. He fired one barrel of his own shotgun at the masked man.
The charge knocked the would-be robber down and away from the road. The wounded bandit fired as he fell, but his wayward shot did no harm. Now on the ground, he tried to rise up on one elbow. But Hendricks wasn’t about to give him another chance. The second blast from the guard’s shotgun instantly killed the holdup man. The gunfire caused the stagecoach horses to bolt.
As the coach raced on, a second robber, on the opposite side of the road, fired several shots. Once out of the assailant’s gunshot range, Wesson got the horses under control and stopped the coach. All was not well inside the coach. The teenager Bonney had sustained wounds to her face and neck, while Hume was bleeding from a relatively minor shoulder wound.
Wesson quickly drove the coach to a nearby ranch. Bonney’s wounds were serious, so ranch hands immediately returned her to Angels Camp for medical treatment. She would eventually recover. A bandaged Hume finished the stage run to Stockton; he, too, would recover. Meanwhile, the ranch owner rode back to the site of the robbery and had no trouble finding the dead bandit, riddled with buckshot from the sole of his right foot to the top of his head.
Lawmen soon arrived on the scene. Learning that one bandit was still at large, they scoured the area for any suspicious characters. Meanwhile, the dead outlaw was put on display in Angels Camp, where a man who had known him in Tulare County identified him as John Keener of Visalia. Notified that his younger brother had been killed, Henry Keener acknowledged that he had read of the robbery attempt. He sent authorities a description not only of John but also of John’s friend William Dowdle. Lawmen intensified their search for the presumed second bandit.
Dowdle eluded authorities until May 28, when a lawman pulled him out of a farmer’s chicken coop and arrested him. Filthy, hungry, thirsty, hatless and as weak as a kitten, the fugitive eagerly surrendered and did not try to conceal his identity or deny his role in the holdup attempt. And Dowdle implicated a third party in the crime—Amos Bierer. Lawmen soon found Bierer back in Angels Camp, too frightened to leave, as he thought that might arouse suspicion. He joined Dowdle in the Calaveras County jail. When questioned at length, the two young prisoners described the robbery attempt in detail. Dowdle also discussed his personal life.
As it turns out, Keener and Dowdle were the sons of socially prominent families who had settled in the Visalia District of Tulare County in the 1850s to range cattle. Born in the early 1860s, the two boys became friends while attending school together. The Dowdle family later moved to Pima County, Arizona Territory, and in 1893 Keener, apparently restless and bored working his family’s holdings in California, visited Arizona to reconnect with his old friend. By then Dowdle was married and owned a small cattle range, but that didn’t keep him from going on a prolonged drinking spree with Keener. Dowdle ended up selling his ranch, leaving wife Tillie behind and returning to California with his pal.
In Visalia, Amos Bierer, a young drifter from Pennsylvania, began carousing with Keener and Dowdle. Henry Keener grew concerned over his brother’s aimless existence, poor choice of companions and heavy drinking. But nothing he said could convince John to change his irresponsible behavior. Dowdle, on the other hand, did sober up somewhat when Tillie showed up unexpectedly with their newborn daughter. To support them, he hired on with Visalia area farmer J.H. Campbell to clear oak trees from his land. Dowdle, in turn, hired friends Keener and Bierer to help him.
The work was hard, and the pay low. It wasn’t long before the three tree clearers decided money could more easily be acquired by robbing stagecoaches. As the stages in the San Joaquin Valley transported little money, the three pals deserted their jobs and headed for Calaveras County, where stages carried plenty of cash—even gold bullion at times. Once in Angels Camp, Keener and Dowdle kept a low profile, while Bierer studied the area stagecoach schedules, paying particular attention to the money shipments. At last they targeted a prospective stage. On that May day in 1894, Keener and Dowdle, both armed with shotguns, rode to the previously selected spot on the road between Angels Camp and Milton. For whatever reason, Bierer remained in Angels Camp. It was up to Keener and Dowdle to pull off the actual robbery, but they failed. Part-time Wells Fargo guard Hendricks was quicker to the trigger.
Dowdle and Bierer, the surviving members of the short-lived gang, stood trial in Calaveras County on charges of assault with the intent to commit robbery. Each was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in Folsom State Prison. According to the prison register, the pair entered the institution on August 16, 1894, 25-yearold Amos Bierer as inmate No. 3222 and 31-year-old William Dowdle as No. 3223. Both were model prisoners.
In the ensuing years, the Dowdle family exerted tremendous political pressure on California governors and the State Board of Prison Directors to parole William. In January 1899, the 20th Legislative Assembly for Arizona Territory also petitioned the prison directors to parole Dowdle, and Graham County Sheriff George Olney voiced his support, adding that John Dowdle, William’s brother, was one of his deputies and a person of good citizenship. On March 4, 1899, Owen T. Rouse, former associate justice of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court, asked California Governor Henry Gage to grant Dowdle executive clemency. Everett E. Ellenwood, an Arizona prosecuting attorney, also petitioned Gage to pardon Dowdle, claiming that the Dowdle family was “in every way first class and reliable” and that William had been influenced by drink and “evil companions.” None of the petitions mentioned the robbery attempt or the two passengers Dowdle had wounded.
Despite the efforts of the Dowdle family and their political friends in Arizona, the California Board of Prison Directors denied Dowdle parole in October 1900. The campaign to free the prisoner only intensified in Arizona. In April 1901, Cochise County Sheriff Adelbert V. Lewis, a noted Arizona lawman, requested Dowdle’s release, as did William Cornell Greene, president of the politically powerful Greene Consolidated Copper Company of southern Arizona. That May the warden of the Arizona Territorial Prison in Yuma, as well as acting Arizona Territorial Governor Charles H. Akers himself, added their support. Two other powerful Arizona politicians, Morris Goldwater and David King Udall, followed suit. It was all to no avail. On October 19, 1901, the California Board of Prison Directors again denied Dowdle parole.
The board did ultimately grant him parole on June 21, 1902, and Dowdle was released from Folsom on June 29. The ever-faithful Tillie had waited for him, and the couple settled in Arizona. Dowdle was discharged from parole status on June 15, 1903. Although no one had spoken on behalf of Amos Bierer, he was paroled shortly after Dowdle’s release and discharged from parole status on the same day as Dowdle. Bierer was still relatively young, but what the “third man” did with the rest of his life has been lost to history.
Originally published in the December 2009 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.
