The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1909-06-16

A CROSS the Missouri river from Kansas City
~ is a little cluster of houses comprising the
Z = village OF Harlem 1t is a low, Hat stray
Cling village OF about two hundred people, yet MS .
tory and the pioneers inform us 1T WaS1o once thesf
commercial rival of Kansas City. During the
early COS there more freight unoaded~af the
Kansas City wharf, but most OF it was consigned :
to Westpor thriving town four miles south OF :
the present metropolis. In 1864 Harlem made
more pretensions to commercial Importance than
Kansas City 1t was the stopping place OF the
majority of the strangers who landed from the
clumsy steamboats, that piled the Missouri river
The hotel or boarding house OF John Mmms en-
tertained most of these passing strangers In
August, 1864, a boat with two occupants swung
slowly through the murky waters OF the Missouri
toward the Harlem shore. The oars We're pulled
by woman. In the bottom of the boat lay sick
man, pallid and exhausted, battling for every
breath of the hot August air that barely main
tanned the spark of life. The woman in the boat
was Mrs. Samuels and the sick man was her son,
even then noted bandit and outlaw, Jesse James.
The journey Harlem had been made at the
entreaty OF the son. who supposed himself to be
dying The James family had been driven from
Weston Missouri, by federal soldiers, and in the
preceding May Jesse had joined them at Rule Ne
braska In a guerilla raid he had been wounded
in the lung. For eight weeks he lay at the point
of death, then for the remainder OF his
life, prescribed, hunted man. In July he begged
to be taken back to Missouri, his old home, to die
and his mother started with him upon the jour-
ney.
Jesse James carried tenderly from the boat
daughter, was assisting her mother with the
boarding house work. She looked with interest
and sympathy upon the face OF the young man,
handsome even after the wasting ravages of his
wound, and then followed the old story of awak-
ening love that finally led modest respected and
homeloving young to share the hunted
life of a bandit
Jesses recovery began almost Immediately after
his entry into the Mmms household, and when
he left it in October, Miss Zerada his prom
Used wife.
Let the critics who would censure such wom-
for such course pause to consider the cir
cumstances of that day. 1t was during the closing
scenes of the civil war, when guerilla tactics had
succeeded the more orderly movements of civilized
warfare. The line between bandit and warrior
was not sharply drawn. Zeralda Mmms probably
knew much of the lawless life OF her lover. She
knew that there price upon his head, anG
not alone because he in the confederate ser
vice. She knew that he hunted from place
to place for something more than political rea
sons. No doubt she had insight into th'
dark future that stretched before her. yet in thOs
turbulent times she could not regard those thing
as we do in the light of a better civilization. T.
was not the sort of woman to worship dime move
in woman of her devoted nature that wa
enough to sweep all barriers away.
The marriage did not until several year
later. During the intervening time occurred som
of the most thrilling adventures of Jesse and tn
Games gang" After the close of the war Jess
and Frank effected compact organizato
of their gang" and plundered banks and expires
companies in merry defancenOf the authorize