Downtown San Angelo Summer '25 - Magazine - Page 16
Sometime between January 1881 and November 1883, “San Angela” became “San Angelo.” Records in the National Archives
contain an application by Nathan A. Osmer in 1881 for a post office at “San Angela;” interestingly, “Concho” has been crossed out
in a couple of places, suggesting that name had also been considered for the town, or at least the mail station. In November 1883,
William E. Ennis received a request for information regarding the “San Angelo” office, but there is no available record clarifying
who gave the name its masculine style–if that was the intent. Was a rejection sent to the local postmaster so that the name could be
revised, or was the decision made in Washington, D.C? It may even have been simply a copying error, and with what else was going
on at the local post office at the time, an “a” here or an “o” there might not have seemed all that important. Here’s the story:
U.S. Postal Records of San Angela, circa 1880.
Courtesy of Amazonaws.com
San Angelo’s assistant postmaster, a man calling himself C. E. Cole, was arrested in October of 1883 for embezzling some $700. Cole
somehow managed to get away, leading U. S. Marshals to arrest his jailer, Sherriff J. D. Spears, on suspicion of helping Cole escape.
Those charges were later dropped; Cole was recaptured and sent to the Bexar County jail, with Sherriff Spears in charge of the escort.
It turns out that Cole was actually Charles B. Fonda, a forger and embezzler on the run since 1881 from New York, where he “has
been guilty of repeated forgeries . . . and six banks in this region held repudiated paper. . . The amount of forgeries is estimated at from
$75,000 to $80,000,” as The New York Times, February 19, 1881, tells it. He did, however, pay “his pew rent six months in advance
previous to his flight,” presumably so the wife and children he left behind could pray for him (Greenville Advocate, March 3, 1881).
There was also a wife in San Angelo, Josephine Taggart, but whether she was the recipient of the pre-paid pew, or was another woman
altogether is unclear. Poor Josephine had been ill and died the night of his arrest on October 29.
Cole had been on the run, committing crimes and using different aliases, and lawmen were after him–one report had him in Puerto
Rico, working on a coffee plantation. His arrest here allowed authorities to confirm his identity as Fonda. He was returned to San
Angelo to appear before the District Attorney, then, inexplicably, released on his own recognizance. Cole, “informed of the fact that
the Brooklyn authorities were on his trail . . . left town Monday night disguised in a false wig and beard and wearing a pair of
overalls,” continued his life of crime (Fort Worth Daily Gazette, November 16, 1883.)
Finally, the Grand Rapids Herald of October 23, 1887, reports that Fonda’s stock in the Farmer’s National Bank there was sold for
more than $44,000 although it had only been valued at $1,800 due to a bidding war. “The above dispatch brought out some
interesting recollections among attorneys and business men in this city who remember the defalcation of Charles Fonda, who was
cashier of the above bank in 1882. He defaulted for about $30,000, was sent to the House of Correction, released on a technicality and
afterwards sent to State prison, from which he was also released on some legal quibble. Finally he escaped all punishment by the
statute of limitations and is now living in Three Rivers.” Thus ends the story of Charles Fonda, aka C. E. Cole–a wonderfully strange
tale that defies classification as either tragedy or comedy, but like the best tales, is a bit of both.
