DIME NOVEL CHARACTERS: ROSEBUD ROB, BALTIMORE BESS AND CINNAMON CHIP

ROSEBUD ROB, BALTIMORE BESS AND CINNAMON CHIP – Here’s another seasonal post for the upcoming Frontierado holiday on Friday August 4th. As always, Frontierado is about the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality.

Recently, here at Balladeer’s Blog, I examined Edward L. Wheeler’s 1877 Dime Novel heroine Hurricane Nell, one of his gun-toting ladies of the old west. You can find that blog post HERE. This time I’m looking at three more of Wheeler’s Dime Novel characters from four of his works.

ROSEBUD ROB … the KNIGHT OF THE GULCH (February 1879) – Rosebud Rob was a Wild West detective, like the real-life Charley Siringo (covered HERE). Rob received his nickname in a bit of action he referred to as his “Black Hills Baptism” as the Black Hills Gold Rush raged.

Rosebud Rob’s hat and boots may look like the kind worn by pirates, but he was all-cowboy and all-tough. He called himself “A man to suit all circumstances.” On four of his cases, he crossed paths with gunslinging, two-fisted female detectives – Baltimore Bess in three of them, and Cinnamon Chip in a fourth.

In this debut story, Rob returns home to investigate the suspicious death of his father and how it is linked to the sinister mine owner Munro Malvern. Rosebud Rob meets and works with female detective Baltimore Bess, the former Pauline Grey.

This fiery young lady was abandoned by her abusive lover when she was 18, then trained herself at gunplay and fighting. Next, she abandoned her “girlie” clothing and headed west to track down the man who mistreated her.

Baltimore Bess never found him but picked up the skills of a detective to go along with her gunfighting abilities and pugilistic prowess. Bess smokes cigars, drinks whiskey, and curses like any man and she is shown respect in saloons across the west due to her reputation for outshooting or outfighting anyone who gets on her bad side.

The cowgirl sees in Rosebud Rob a man who might actually be her equal, and she also declares him “the purtiest galoot” she’s ever met. The pair solve the case in this Dime Novel and end as merely friends, but their paths will cross again and again.

ROSEBUD ROB ON HAND OR IDYL, THE GIRL MINER (March 1879) – Our “will they or won’t they get together” couple wind up working on the same case once again.

The sagebrush sleuths Rosebud Rob and Baltimore Bess become mixed up in an action-filled affair involving scheming aristocrats who are on an extended tour of the Wild West. Kidnapping and the search for a fortune in gold also play into the intriguing tale.

ROSEBUD ROB’S REAPPEARANCE OR PHOTOGRAPH PHIL (April 1879) – Rosebud Rob and his gal pal Baltimore Bess return for another adventure. This one is, to me, a quasi-Spaghetti Western version of a Dime Novel.

Our hero and heroine protect a runaway girl while clashing with cloaked and cultish road agents, a preacher who has sinister designs, and a mysterious enemy from Rosebud Rob’s past. In the end, Baltimore Bess at last gives in to her love for Rob, but, realizing they are not meant to be, she suicidally enters a barroom brawl.

Bess is mortally wounded and dies in the arms of her beloved Rosebud Rob.

CHIP, THE GIRL SPORT OR THE GOLDEN IDOL OF MT. ROSA (June 1879) – Remember how the real-life pirate Calico Jack became involved with the two female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read? Well, our fictional old west gunslinger Rosebud Rob catches the eye of a second two-fisted, gun-toting beauty in this last of his adventures.

This time around, Rob becomes entangled with the female adventuress called Cinnamon Chip Barrett, the daughter of a now-deceased explorer named Sandy Barrett. Cinammon Chip drinks and smokes like Baltimore Bess, wields a walking stick like Bat Masterson, shoots like Poker Alice and dresses like a male dandy.

There’s a touch of Boy’s Own adventures to this tale as Rosebud Rob and Cinnamon Chip get caught up in a quest to find the diamond-studded golden idol of the title. The search leads them inside an extinct northern Arizona volcano on Mount Rosa.

The idol turns out to be part of a devious web spun by this Dime Novel’s villainess, Evelyn Howard. Our two main characters survive the escapade and Rosebud Rob proposes marriage to Cinnamon Chip. The two wed and retire from their lives of danger.

Like so many Dime Novels, all four of these were reprinted multiple times in the decades ahead, especially in collections called the Deadwood Dick Library, named after the masked, gunslinging hero of 33 books by Edward L. Wheeler. I point this out to avoid confusion when you find sources which refer to these novels being published in the 1880s, 1890s or 1920s instead of 1879. 

FOR MY REVIEW OF THE 1984 WESTERN YELLOWHAIR AND THE FORTRESS OF GOLD, ABOUT A FEMALE GUNSLINGER AND HER MALE SIDEKICK ON THE HUNT FOR AZTEC GOLD CLICK HERE.