"Gone With The Posse, Mama..." - Story Of A Gold Country Badge

Fred Huston was a farrier and part-time gold seeker living in Jamestown, Cal. when he was asked to join a posse looking for the prolific highwayman Charles Boles - known at the time as the poetically inclined "Black Bart."

"Bart" had just held up a stage in Oroville and was reportedly just steps ahead of lawmen who'd set their caps to catch him when word spread that a wider net was needed and a posse was being formed.

Fred put down his blacksmith's hammer picked up a rifle and joined up, telling his mother he'd be gone awhile. But the fleet-footed Boles was a skilled woodsman and cross country trekker. He made good time getting out of the area with $2000 or so of Wells Fargo's money and promptly disappeared.

Fred eventually joined up with the legendary Harry Morse, who dedicated a good portion of his life to catching the elusive highwayman who, as it turned out, was living the life of a wealthy mine owner in that most sinful of cities, San Francisco.


The posse traveled near and far looking for Bart, Huston getting a badge made by Reiningers of San Francisco, a short rosewood truncheon, and a monthly purse to participate. All he ever found was a young schoolmarm, Nettie Hinch, when the posse passed through Gilroy.

It took the mountain man a while to get around to it but eventually he asked Nettie to come away with him, she acquiesced and they moved back to Jamestown, leaving Morse to eventually track and capture the fast-moving Boles in San Francisco, after he left an embroidered handkerchief behind at the scene of one of his robberies.

Fred and Nettie were married and settled down to having children, Fred still gathering his "poke sack" of beans and coffee and taking off into the mountains to fish and pan for gold while Nettie waited at home.

His badge, photo and truncheon surfaced recently at a home in Livermore, Cal. Nettie's picture was not far away.