(the following two articles are
from the Sept. 17, 1896 editions of the Anamosa
Journal and Eureka)POLK WELLS DEAD
An Ignominious Death In Prison -- the End of a
Wasted Career
Fifty Years Spent in a Life
of Outlawry, Crime and Murder Brought to a Close
On August 26, there was brought
to the Penitentiary at Anamosa from the Fort Madison
prison a man around whom lingers only the tale of a
depraved life and the memory of years of crime and
outlawry. This man was Charles Knox Polk Wells, whose
career was ended last Friday by the life sapping enemy of
humanity, consumption.
Early in life Polk Wells chose
for his companions the James and Younger brothers,
thereby choosing also a life which was sure to be
checkered with crimes of nearly every nature. Wells went
under the alias of C.H. Warner for some time, but oft
times when some crime was proved against him and his
correct name leaked out, his name became common and
familiar with officers and detectives, particularly with
that greatest of detectives, William Pinkerton. For many
years, Wells has been a train-robber and all-around
bandit in Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa. Riverton, Iowa and
Winston, Iowa were victims of his rapatious instincts and
many daring pieces of outlawry under his leadership were
effected in Halls City, Missouri and other points in the
latter state. Sheriff Dan Farrell of Mills County, Iowa
and Sheriff Chandler of an adjoining county finally
started in pursuit of this terror of the woods, and after
many weeks of searching and clue following, traced Wells
and an associate desperado to Randolph, Wisconsin, where
a furious fight occured between the officers and the
bandits in a crime-painted saloon, where the officers
were badly punished.
Wells was a very muscular man,
tipping the beam at 200 pounds and was built from the
ground up, always ready to square himself for a
fisticuff, catch-as-catch-can or a little time with
revolvers. To attempt his capture meant great risk and
the officers who should undertake to get the handcuffs on
him knew that the attempt was fraught with danger to the
finish and probably death. The only way to capture him
was by cunning and superior force. In the above mentioned
fight Farrell was shot four times. Norris, Wells' partner
three times, and Wells himself so badly injured and
maimed that he was taken from the saloon to the train and
from there to Chicago on a stretcher. Though he seemed to
be injured beyond every hope of reviving strength and
though he appeared helpless, the officers having him in
charge were in such fear of him that a strong and
watchful guard was kept constantly over him. Hundreds of
people who had heard of the notorious bandit flocked to
the central station to catch a glimpse of him. He and his
partner were finally lodged in the Fort Madison
Penitentiary. While serving his sentence there he
chloroformed a guard and made his escape (ed. - the guard
later died and Wells received a life sentence for the
murder). In effecting his capture several of the pursuing
officers were wounded. From Fort Madison he was
transferred here August 26 on account of the better
hospital and better care. Here he died last Friday at 8
o'clock, of consumption. Emaciated and his spirit broken,
his once powerful frame had dwindled into nothing more
than a shadow.
Wells married Nora Wilson at his
home in Missouri in 1872 and there started a grocery
store and saloon, but failed in this mercantile adventure
and again took to his wild career. After two years of
bandit life he went back to his home intending to settle
down and quit the road of crime he had been traveling,
but finding his wife had remarried and that his child was
dead, he forsook forever every other ambition and
consigned himself to the life he had hitherto been
leading and which had landed him in the state prison.
Since he has been in prison he made a profession of
Christianity and claimed that he had been forgiven of his
sins. Last January he endeavored to get a pardon on
account of failing health but was unsuccessful. For the
last three months his condition kept changing for the
worse and ever since his arrival here, death was looked
for at any moment. the remains were properly dressed and
cared for and Saturday night were sent to his sister near
St. Joseph, Missouri. Contrary to his early expressed
wishes he did not die with his boots on.
HISTORY OF HIS LIFE
Charles Polk Wells was
imprisoned originally for robbery. He was afterward
sentenced to life imprisonment for complicity with two
other convicts in the murder of a guard in escaping from
Fort Madison. He was convicted in Lee County in 1882 and
for the past six years has made biennial attempts to
secure a pardon from the state legislature. In the
meantime he professed to have been converted and to have
become a Christian. He asked a pardon from the last
legislature on the grounds that he was dying of
consumption, proven by his death to have been correct,
that the guard who was killed was killed accidentally by
Wells' companions and not by him and that the other
parties to the murder had already been let out. His plea
fell on deaf ears.
JW Elder, employed at the
Clarinda asylum, is a son of the guard who was killed by
Wells and his companions when they escaped from Fort
Madison May 1, 1882. He denies that Wells' story is
correct. He was a resident of Fort Madison at the time
and was in the hospital ward of the penitentiary with his
father at the time of the murder. He says Wells directed
the movements, that he superintended the administration
of the chloroform, and that the guard was not
intoxicated, as claimed by Wells. A daughter of the guard
who was murdered lives at Dakota City, Nebraska, and is
Mrs. F.H. Ayers. It was partially through the efforts of
the son of the murdered man and largely by the protests
of the law abiding people of the state the Wells was
refused a pardon by the last legislature.
Wells was born in Buchanan
County, Missouri. After winning some money playing poker
he bought a cowboy's outfit and started for the frontier.
There he roamed the plains for ten years. He won fame as
an Indian fighter from the Rio Pecos, in New Mexico, to
the British domain, and from the Missouri to the Pacific
slope. He was twice captured by the Indians and escaped.
He made friends of Alf Slade, the stage robber; Billy
Gay, the famous Montana cowboy; California Joe, the guide
and hunter, and the renowned Kit Carson, who, after
complimenting the marksmanship and praising the courage
of Polk Wells, gave him a fine buckhorn-handled hunting
knife, which afterwards served as an introducttion to the
famous Wild Bill, with whom Wells went of several
expeditiions against the Indians.
In 1872 Polk Wells returned to
Missouri, and married Miss Nora Wilson. He went into the
grocery and liquor business, but through a technicality
in the law he lost all his property, and leaving his wife
and baby with her sister he returned to his wild life,
promising to return soon in better fortune. But it was
two years before he came back, and then he found his wife
living with another man, Al Warnica, and the baby dead.
In speaking of it afterward, Wells said, "Warnica
was a hard-working young fellow, and I determined not to
interfere, for there had been no intentional wrongdoing.
I gave him $300 to buy a team with, kissed Nora goodbye,
mounted my horse, and rode away." (ed. -- Warnica
and Wells remained friends the remainder of Wells' life.
Warnica published Wells' book posthumously).
In May 1879, Wells said he
committed his first crime, highway robbery. Then followed
one express train and three bank robberies. With two
companions he rode in the same coach with three Pinkerton
men, who were looking for him and to whom he was pointed
out by the conductor, but no attempt was made to arrest
him, though they rode together from St. Joseph to Council
Bluffs. The daring that he exhibited was at times so
great that it was his best protector.
"But my white brothers have
used me pretty rough," he said. "I was hanged
twice during the war by Kansas jayhawkers, was stabbed
twice in the back by Mexicans, and from first to last
have received into my body thirty-three bullets,
twenty-seven of which still remain with me." (ed. --
after death the medical college had instructions to dig
out the bullets and give them to Al Warnica).
After his capture by Sheriff
Farrell in Wisconsin, during which capture he was shot
three times, Wells was taken to Sidney, Iowa, pleaded
guilty, and was sentenced to ten years in the
penitentiary for highway robbery. It was while serving
this sentence that Wells and his two fellow convicts
planened to escape, and in doing so killed the guard.
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