How Banks rode pony

express to the Cooks

By William Coppell

Did Charles Wells Banks rob the American firm of Wells Fargo of more than $20,000 and clear off to the Cook Islands to escape retribution? Or did Banks take the rap for others within the firm who stole the money? These questions were asked in these pages in February, when the strange story of Charles Banks was told, partly from his own diaries discovered in the Cooks.

We can now take the story a little further.

PIM’S February account told how the trusted cashier of the famous ex press department of Wells Fargo, the man-about-town who was so highly thought of by the company which had employed him for 17 years that he was not required to post a fidelity bond, had absconded from his San Francisco office one weekend in 1886 —and how more than $20,000 in cash disappeared with him.

A few months later Banks, under a different name, turned up in Raro tonga, Cook Islands, where he eventu ally became Government Auditor.

Although his whereabouts became known to Wells Fargo, the firm was unable to get its hands on him be cause the Cooks were under British protection and there was no extra dition treaty with the US.

Banks died in Rarotonga in March, 1915, at the age of 75, and is buried in the LMS graveyard there. He had never left the Cooks, where he lived unobtrusively and modestly. In his de clining years he suffered from poverty, this man who was once a member of exclusive San Francisco clubs and a member of society.

That Banks was wanted in the US over the missing $20,000 (there was in fact a reward of $l,OOO posted for him) was known to some people in the Cooks during his lifetime, but Banks put it around that as book keeper he had merely been concealing the wrong-doings of others in Wells Fargo who had been speculating with the firm’s money.

Since that story was written I have been in touch with Mr. Harold R.

Arthur, vice president and cashier of Wells Pargo Bank of San Francisco, who has supplied me with a variety of contemporary newspaper reports of Banks’ disappearance, and also makes some relevant comments of his own.

That Banks had tried to put blame on to others was known to Wells Fargo at the time.

Mr. Arthur made a spot check amongst Wells Fargo records (some

4J tons of it having newly arrived from the New York office and still being evaluated) and says that this check has “not brought to light any thing to change our previous under standing, to wit: that return of Mr.

Banks to the United States was very clearly wanted in order that he could be questioned and in full probability brought to trial for sole responsibility in connection with the shortage of $20,000 of company funds discovered by audit to be missing immediately following his unannounced and un expected disappearance”.

Mr. Arthur enclosed photostat copies of newspaper reports of 1886-88, and one from the San Fran cisco Chronicle of April 19, 1887, quoted E. M. Cooper, the company’s general superintendent, as saying, “There is not a particle of evidence to show that any director or any other employee of the company was con cerned with Banks in the matter . . . no credit could be given to such an irresponsible statement”. Mr. Arthur’s view is that it was a “fabrication by Mr. Banks which he may have be lieved would favourably affect his status in the Cook Islands and his op portunities for finding employment there”.

Other information supplied by the helpful Mr. Arthur shows that Wells Fargo later raised its offer for the re turn of Banks, and obviously wanted him badly indeed. In addition to pay ing $l,OOO “for the arrest and delivery of Banks at any jail, in any of the states or territories of the United States”. Wells Fargo offered 25 per cent, of all moneys recovered from Mr. Banks.

The newspaper clippings supplied by Mr. Arthur show that Banks had made careful preparations for his de parture from San Francisco on Nov ember 1, 1886.

On October 29 he sent his library of scientific and other works and a large microscope to his friend H. P.

Gregory, in payment of a debt of $l,BOO and on October 30 he shifted his lodgings. Detective J. B. Hume, of

Wells Fargo, spoke to Banks on the Sunday and noticed that his beard had gone but did not think that anything was amiss.

On the afternoon of the Monday Banks purchased a buckskin money vest and a money belt and later hired an expressman to carry his effects to the barquentine City of Papeete. Be fore quitting San Francisco he also finalised his financial affairs by selling some stock in a building and loan as sociation. The cheque for this trans action was cashed by Banks with the endorsement of Charles W. Banks and William Seaton, but it was not pos sible afterwards to locate Seaton and it was presumed that this was a false endorsement.

A new light on Banks’ disappearance was thrown by an advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle of January 15, 1887, “If the lady who visited the barkentine City of Papeete on Sunday, October 31, 1886, will call at room 28, 320 Sansousi St., she may save herself much unpleasant notoriety”.

A story in the same issue re counted how Banks had been traced to Auckland and that he owed “his downfall to a woman’s wiles”. The story continued, “It was learnt that the exemplary cashier had been lavishing his spare time and money on a woman who is still in the back ground”.

When the City of Papeete sailed on Monday, November 1, 1886, she had aboard only three passengers, J. Jan not, a French priest, John Scard and C. Courtright. When Scard’s ticket had been paid for, the information was volunteered that Scard was an in valid going to the Islands for his health. Banks had inspected his cabin on November 28 and “the following day he again visited the vessel in the company of a woman, who is believed to have been the cause of his down fall. The pair remained on board about an hour, then took their de parture”.

Continued on p. 124

On the voyage Banks, alias Scard, was generous with the crew and when the ship arrived at Papeete he rented a cottage and took the Captain for buggy rides. When he parted with Captain Berude of the City of Papeete, he handed him an ounce vial of sulphate of morphia, remarking, “I guess that I won’t need this now and you might as well put it in your medicine chest”. This comment was later seen as meaning he might have tried to suicide if cornered.

It was reported that Banks reached Auckland on Christmas Day, 1886, on the Janet Nicoll, having left Papeete six hours before the arrival from San Francisco of the Raiated, the captain of which was furnished with photographs of Banks and instructions to arrest him if he was in Tahiti.

On March 20, 1887, the San Francisco papers reported Banks’ arrival in his sanctuary in the Cook Islands, although the exact geographical location was variously given as Rarotonga.

and Tonga. The Daily Examiner says that he had $1,700 when he arrived in Rarotonga, and “he proclaimed his purpose to remain in Rarotonga, where it was said he is in great favour with the dusky Queen and very popu lar with the inhabitants, both black and white”.

The final substantial link between the USA and Banks was broken on May 14, 1888, when it was reported that, “a despatch received from New York last night brought the intelli gence that Mrs. Fannie Banks had been granted a divorce from Charles Banks, the defaulter”.

This chapter in Banks’ life is closed w j t h the statement, “at latest account Banks was reported to be living on the island of Itatucke (Aitutaki), near Rarotonga, in peaceful comfort. He has probably enough for his wants, as he carried away his booty, and liv ing is not as costly in those parts as it is in San Francisco to a member of the Union Club, which Banks was in his cashier days”.