The St. Paul echo. [volume] (St. Paul ;) 1925-1927, 1926-08-07
PA OF JAMES BOYS
A CHAMPION FIDDLER
kinsman Of St6newall Jack.
son Recalls Early West.

! son Recalls Early West
| Denton, Texas.-He used to shoot
marbles and later Jayhawkers with
the notorious James brothers, and
now, going on ninety-three, he lays
claim to the title Of the oldest fiddler
in the United States who is Confed-
crate veteran.
]. B. Jackson, Little Elm, Denton
county, kinsman of Stonewall Jack
son, Indian fighter, member Of Guam
trell's band In the Civil war, and col
lector Of antique violins, has figured
in the pioneer history of dozen
states.
For the last 80 years he has trav-
eled by horse and buggy across Texas,
and even into the mountains of New
Mexico, selling shrubs and trees. This
year is the first he has spent at home,
and 1t is broken into by jaunts of
many miles to play BILLY Of the Low
Ground" and Rose of Edinburgh" for
the effete youth who gather round
while he calls the figures of an old
fashioned square dance.
chafes at Inactivity.
But he chafes at inaction. The
wanderlust has enthralled him since
! his old raiding days with Quantrell's
band, side by side with Frank and
Jesse James. When the war was
over he was one of the young men
that went West in the wake Of the
gold rushing "forty-niners."
Boarding a clumsy river steamer,
mounted with cannon fore and aft, he
journeyed up the Missouri river. 1t
was a perilous voyage, piercing the
Indian country, and the crew and pas
Isengers, about forty in all, amused
themselves by shooting buffalo, an
telope, deer and mountain lions from
the deck.
Jackson escaped the Indian arrows
until he landed at Fort Benton, from
which terminal he made q stagecoach
trip Of $50 miles to Helena. While
In q South Dakota Indian fight he
was wounded. He bears the scar, as
we'll as marks of hand-to-hand con-
fiict, a depression in his temple and
bent wrist.
He went through the Civil war un-
scathed.
After six years as metal expert in
the Southern Pacific railroad shops at
Sacramento, Calf, he returned to
Texas.
Connoisseur Of violins, Jackson has
in his collection three valuable instru-
ments, one said to be a Stradivarius;
another, black with age, which bears
the date Of 1920, and his favorite, said
to be 225 years old. ..
Jackson has been q fiddler from
early childhood. His hands, slender
and flexible, are as nimble as those Of
Ia happer typist, although his back is
bent nearly double.
North Texas has been Jackson's
stamping ground since his return from
California, about 1894, when he
stopped at Forth Worth. He lived
more than q year near Garland and
later spent several years at Rockwall.
} He was married at Knobnoster. Mo-,
40 years ago, to Miss Ross Keene.
Three children are living-Mrs. r. B.
Flowers, Little Elm, with whom he
makes his home; Mrs. May Willoford,
Dallas, and Ira B. Jackson, railway
man, of Montana.
Defends James Boys.
! Born at Burksville, Cumberland
county, Kentucky, April Is, 1884.
jackson spent his youth In Clay coun-
ity, Missouri. He recalls Kansas City
when 1t was no more than a river boat
terminal. It was in this vicinity that
he was companion Of the James boys,
whose father was a Baptist minister,
he recalls, "of fine old Kentucky
family"
They weren't really bad; they were
driven to what they did by cruel
treatment during the war;" the sur
viving playmate asserted.
Eat sparingly" is the health for
.mula Of the nonogenarian, whose al
most invariable menu is biscuit with
honey or molasses, cup Of coffee at
breakfast and milk at other meals. He
partakes Of snuff and tobacco, the
latter being smoked and chewed, but
only occasionally.
Although both parents died In early
maturity Of tuberculosis, recent eI-
animation showed Jackson to be as
sound as any person the physicians
iAvAr tastsd. they declared