Jesse James facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jesse James
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James c. 1882
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| Born | September 5, 1847 Near Kearney, Missouri, U.S.
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| Died | April 3, 1882 (aged 34) St. Joseph, Missouri, U.S.
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| Cause of death | Gunshot wound to the head |
| Years active | 1866–1882 |
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Zerelda Mimms
(m. 1874) |
| Children | 4, including Jesse E. James |
| Parents |
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| Relatives | Frank James (brother) Wood Hite (cousin) |
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Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla and leader of the James–Younger Gang. Raised in the "Little Dixie" area of Western Missouri, James and his family maintained strong Southern sympathies. He and his brother Frank James joined pro-Confederate guerrillas known as "bushwhackers" operating in Missouri and Kansas during the American Civil War. As followers of William Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, they were accused of committing atrocities against Union soldiers and civilian abolitionists, including the Centralia Massacre in 1864.
After the war, as members of various gangs of outlaws, Jesse and Frank robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains across the Midwest, gaining national fame and often popular sympathy despite the brutality of their crimes. The James brothers were most active as members of their own gang from about 1866 until 1876, when as a result of their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, several members of the gang were captured or killed. They continued in crime for several years afterward, recruiting new members, but came under increasing pressure from law enforcement seeking to bring them to justice. On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford, a new recruit to the gang who hoped to collect a reward on James's head and a promised amnesty for his previous crimes. Already a celebrity in life, James became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death.
Popular portrayals of James as an embodiment of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, are a case of romantic revisionism as there is no evidence his gang shared any loot from their robberies with anyone outside their network. Scholars and historians have characterized James as one of many criminals inspired by the regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the Civil War, rather than as a manifestation of alleged economic justice or of frontier lawlessness. James continues to be one of the most famous figures from the era, and his life has been dramatized and memorialized numerous times.
Contents
Early life
Jesse Woodson James was born on September 5, 1847, in Clay County, Missouri, near the site of present-day Kearney. This area of Missouri was largely settled by people from the Upper South, especially Kentucky and Tennessee, and became known as Little Dixie for this reason. James had two siblings: his elder brother, Alexander Franklin "Frank" James, and a younger sister, Susan Lavenia James. He was of English and Scottish descent. His father, Robert S. James, farmed commercial hemp in Kentucky and was a Baptist minister before coming to Missouri. After he married, he migrated to Bradford, Missouri and helped found William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. He held six slaves and more than 100 acres (0.40 km2) of farmland.
Robert traveled to California during the Gold Rush to minister to those searching for gold; he died there when James was three years old. After Robert's death, his widow Zerelda remarried twice, first to Benjamin Simms in 1852 and then in 1855 to Dr. Reuben Samuel, who moved into the James family home.
Historical context
The approach of the American Civil War loomed large in the James–Samuel household. Missouri was a border state, sharing characteristics of both North and South, but 75% of the population was from the South or other border states. Clay County in particular was strongly influenced by the Southern culture of its rural pioneer families. Farmers raised the same crops and livestock as in the areas from which they had migrated. They brought slaves with them and purchased more according to their needs. The county counted more slaveholders and more slaves than most other regions of the state; in Missouri as a whole, slaves accounted for only 10 percent of the population, but in Clay County, they constituted 25 percent. Aside from slavery, the culture of Little Dixie was Southern in other ways as well. This influenced how the population acted during and for a period of time after the war.
After the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854, Clay County became the scene of great turmoil as the question of whether slavery would be expanded into the neighboring Kansas Territory bred tension and hostility. Many people from Missouri migrated to Kansas to try to influence its future. Much of the dramatic build-up to the Civil War centered on the violence that erupted on the Kansas–Missouri border between pro- and anti-slavery militias.
American Civil War
After a series of campaigns and battles between conventional armies in 1861, guerrilla warfare gripped Missouri, waged between secessionist "bushwhackers" and Union forces which largely consisted of local militias known as "jayhawkers". A bitter conflict ensued, resulting in an escalating cycle of atrocities committed by both sides. Confederate guerrillas murdered civilian Unionists and executed prisoners. The Union presence enforced martial law with raids on homes, arrests of civilians, summary executions, and banishment of Confederate sympathizers from the state.
The James–Samuel family sided with the Confederates at the outbreak of war. Frank James joined a local company recruited for the secessionist Drew Lobbs Army, and fought at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in August 1861. He fell ill and returned home soon afterward. In 1863, he was identified as a member of a guerrilla squad that operated in Clay County. In May of that year, a Union militia company raided the James–Samuel farm looking for Frank's group.
Quantrill's Raiders
Frank James eluded capture and was believed to have joined the guerrilla organization led by William C. Quantrill known as Quantrill's Raiders. It is thought that he took part in the notorious massacre of some two hundred men and boys in Lawrence, Kansas, a center of abolitionists. Frank followed Quantrill to Sherman, Texas, over the winter of 1863–1864. In the spring he returned in a squad commanded by Fletch Taylor. After they arrived in Clay County, 16-year-old Jesse James joined his brother in Taylor's group.
Taylor was severely wounded in the summer of 1864, losing his right arm to a shotgun blast. The James brothers then joined the bushwhacker group led by William "Bloody Bill" Anderson.
As a result of the James brothers' activities, Union military authorities forced their family to leave Clay County. Though ordered to move South beyond Union lines, they moved north across the nearby state border into Nebraska Territory.
After "Bloody Bill" Anderson was killed in an ambush in October, the James brothers separated. Frank followed Quantrill into Kentucky, while Jesse went to Texas under the command of Archie Clement, one of Anderson's lieutenants. He is known to have returned to Missouri in the spring.
After the Civil War
At the end of the Civil War, Missouri remained deeply divided. The conflict split the population into three bitterly opposed factions: anti-slavery Unionists identified with the Republican Party; segregationist conservative Unionists identified with the Democratic Party; and pro-slavery, ex-Confederate secessionists, many of whom were also allied with the Democrats, especially in the southern part of the state.
The Republican-dominated Reconstruction legislature passed a new state constitution that freed Missouri's slaves. It temporarily excluded former Confederates from voting, serving on juries, becoming corporate officers, or preaching from church pulpits. The atmosphere was volatile, with widespread clashes between individuals and between armed gangs of veterans from both sides of the war.
James–Younger Gang
Meanwhile, the James brothers joined with Cole Younger and his brothers John, Jim, and Bob, as well as Clell Miller and other former Confederates, to form what came to be known as the James–Younger Gang. With Jesse James as the most public face of the gang (though with operational leadership likely shared among the group), the gang carried out a string of robberies from Iowa to Texas, and from Kansas to West Virginia. They robbed banks, stagecoaches, and a fair in Kansas City, often carrying out their crimes in front of crowds, and even hamming it up for the bystanders.
On July 21, 1873, they turned to train robbery, derailing a Rock Island Line train west of Adair, Iowa, and stealing approximately $3,000 (equivalent to $73,000 in 2022). For this, they wore Ku Klux Klan masks. By this time, the Klan had been suppressed in the South by President Grant's use of the Enforcement Acts. Former rebels attacked the railroads as symbols of threatening centralization.
The gang's later train robberies had a lighter touch. The gang held up passengers only twice, choosing in all other incidents to take only the contents of the express safe in the baggage car. John Newman Edwards made sure to highlight such techniques when creating an image of James as a kind of Robin Hood. Despite public sentiment toward the gang's crimes, there is no evidence that the James gang ever shared any of the robbery money outside their personal circle.
Jesse and his cousin Zee married on April 24, 1874. They had two children who survived to adulthood: Jesse Edward James (b. 1875) and Mary Susan James (later Barr, b. 1879). Twins Gould and Montgomery James (b. 1878) died in infancy. Jesse Jr. became a lawyer who practiced in Kansas City, Missouri, and Los Angeles, California.
On September 7, 1876, the opening day of hunting season in Minnesota, the James–Younger gang attempted a raid on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota. The robbery quickly went wrong, however, and after the robbery only Frank and Jesse James remained alive and free.
With his gang nearly annihilated, James trusted only the Ford brothers, Charley and Robert. Although Charley had been out on raids with James, Bob Ford was an eager new recruit. For protection, James asked the Ford brothers to move in with him and his family. By that time, Bob Ford had conducted secret negotiations with Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden, planning to bring in the famous outlaw. Crittenden had made capture of the James brothers his top priority; in his inaugural address he declared that no political motives could be allowed to keep them from justice. Barred by law from offering a large reward, he had turned to the railroad and express corporations to put up a $5,000 bounty for the delivery of each of them and an additional $5,000 for the conviction of either of them.
Death
On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford.
The death of Jesse James became a national sensation. The Fords made no attempt to hide their role. The Ford brothers surrendered to the authorities and were dismayed to be charged with first-degree murder. In the course of a single day, the Ford brothers were indicted, pleaded guilty, were sentenced to death by hanging, and were granted a full pardon by Governor Crittenden. The governor's quick pardon suggested he knew the brothers intended to kill James rather than capture him. The implication that the chief executive of Missouri conspired to kill a private citizen startled the public and added to James's notoriety.
After receiving a small portion of the reward, the Fords fled Missouri. Sheriff James Timberlake and Marshal Henry H. Craig, who were law enforcement officials active in the plan, were awarded the majority of the bounty.
James's original grave was on his family property, but he was later moved to a cemetery in Kearney. The original footstone is still there, although the family has replaced the headstone. James's mother Zerelda Samuel wrote the following epitaph for him: "In Loving Memory of my Beloved Son, Murdered by a Traitor and Coward Whose Name is not Worthy to Appear Here." James's widow Zerelda Mimms James died alone and in poverty.
Museums
Museums and sites devoted to Jesse James:
- James Farm in Kearney, Missouri: In 1974, Clay County, Missouri, bought the property. The county operates the site as a house museum and historic site. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, with a boundary increase in 1978.
- Jesse James Home Museum: The house where Jesse James was killed in south St. Joseph was moved in 1939 to the Belt Highway on St. Joseph's east side to attract tourists. In 1977, it was moved to its current location, near Patee House, which was the headquarters of the Pony Express. The house is owned and operated by the Pony Express Historical Association.
- The Jesse James Bank Museum, on the square in Liberty, Missouri, is the site of the first daylight bank robbery in the United States in peacetime. The museum is managed by Clay County along with the James Farm Home and Museum outside of Kearney.
- First National Bank of Northfield: The Northfield Historical Society in Northfield, Minnesota, has restored the building that housed the First National Bank, the scene of the 1876 raid.
- Heaton Bowman Funeral Home, 36th Street and Frederick Avenue, St. Joseph, Missouri: The funeral home's predecessor conducted the original autopsy and funeral for Jesse James. A room in the back holds the log book and other documentation.
- The Jesse James Tavern is located in Asdee, County Kerry, Ireland. It has been claimed that James's ancestors were from that area of Ireland. But documented evidence suggests that on his father's side, Jesse was a third-generation American of English descent.
- According to the National Park Service, Jesse James has a historical connection to Mammoth Cave National Park, having reportedly occupied some of the cave's inner areas during his escapes from the law, and having committed a stage coach robbery between Cave City and Mammoth Cave. These claims are disputed, as, according to Katie Cielinski, a local cave expert, "If every cave that claims Jesse James had been there (was valid), Jesse James would never have been on the surface." It is likely these legends are based on the ample evidence that the Kentucky cave system played host to outlaw camps in general.
Festivals
The Defeat of Jesse James Days in Northfield, Minnesota, is among the largest outdoor celebrations in the state. It is held annually in September during the weekend after Labor Day. Thousands of visitors watch reenactments of the robbery, a championship rodeo, a carnival, performances of a 19th-century style melodrama musical, and a parade during the five-day event.
Jesse James's boyhood home in Kearney, Missouri, is operated as a museum dedicated to the town's most famous resident. Each year a recreational fair, the Jesse James Festival, is held during the third weekend in September.
The annual Victorian Festival in Jersey County, Illinois, is held on Labor Day weekend at the 1866 Col. William H. Fulkerson estate Hazel Dell. Festivities include telling Jesse James's history in stories and by reenactments of stagecoach holdups. Over the three-day event, thousands of spectators learn of the documented James Gang's stopover at Hazel Dell and of their connection with ex-Confederate Fulkerson.
Russellville, Kentucky, the site of the robbery of the Southern Bank in 1868, holds a reenactment of the robbery every year as of the Logan County Tobacco and Heritage Festival.
The small town of Oak Grove, Louisiana, also hosts a town-wide annual Jesse James Outlaw Roundup Festival, usually in the early to mid autumn. This is a reference to a short time James supposedly spent near this area.
Cultural depictions
See also
In Spanish: Jesse James para niños
