Jesse James

A. P. Clayton was mayor of St. Joseph from 1908 to 1912. He was on one occasion at a gathering in a distant city and was introduced as the mayor of St. Joseph. One in the group said to him: "St. Joseph, now isn't that the place that had the outlaw, Jesse James? I suppose you are not very proud of him. Clayton instantly replied: “On the contrary, we are. Jesse James, like everything else in St. Joseph, was the best in his line.

Jesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Missouri, on September 5, 1847. His parents came of good Kentucky families. His father, Robert James, was born in Logan County, Kentucky, and graduated from the college at Georgetown, Kentucky. He was a Baptist minister in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and after his marriage in 1841 the family moved to Clay County, Missouri, where he supported his family mainly by farming. He was a trustee of William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. Mrs. James was a Catholic. Apparently the family life was anything but harmonious. In 1851 the Reverend James decided to leave to seek his fortune in California. At the time Jesse was only four years old. Soon after reaching California, Robert died, and in 1857 Mrs. James was remarried to Dr. Reuben Samuels, a farmer and physician.

Clay County was on the border between North and South in the Civil War and an older brother of Jesse, Frank James, left to join the Southern guerilla forces of William C. Quantrill. The family was known to be Southern in its sympathies, and one day in the spring of 1863 a band of Union troopers rode up to the Samuels' farmhouse near Kearney in Clay County in search of Frank James. In an effort to make Dr. Samuels reveal Frank's supposed hiding place, the troopers hanged him to a tree in the yard until he was nearly dead.

His wife and children were powerless to interfere. Jesse, aged fifteen, was ploughing in a field near the house when the soldiers arrived, and a squad of them drove him, with bayonet pricks, to the house to witness the torture. It was then that Jesse James vowed vengeance, and soon afterward he joined his brother Frank and Quantrill.

In the words of John Samuels, Jesse's half-brother, in 1908: "The soldiers cut down Father before life was extinct, threw him across a horse, and rode away with him. They called back to us, threatening to return, burn the house, and murder us all if we attempted to leave the premises. They said they would shoot Father and leave his body in the woods nearby for the hogs to eat. As they entered the timber, they fired their guns to frighten us. It was not until the next day that we learned that Father's life had been spared and that he had been taken into town and put in jail. Father never recovered from the effects of this rough treatment and the last seven years before his death in 1908, at the age of 82, were spent in the State Hospital in St. Joseph.”

A few months after Jesse joined Quantrill, he was a participant, on August 21, 1863, in the raid on Lawrence, Kansas. The Quantrill gang of 400 mounted men killed over 150 citizens, and Jesse-aged sixteen-boasted that he had shot down thirty-six men. Later in the war, he suffered a severe wound and was forced to spend about a year in quiet recuperation.

In 1866 Jesse joined Coleman Younger and others in a career of robbery and violence. The gang specialized in robbing banks and railroad trains. In 1875 Pinkerton detectives who had been retained to eliminate Jesse, threw a bomb into the Samuels' farmhouse. This killed nine-year-old Arthur Samuels, Jesse's half-brother, and blew off the arm of Mrs. Samuels, Jesse's mother. This act stirred the outlaws to greater extremes of robbery and violence. Finally, in 1881, Jesse decided to settle down in St. Joseph and let the search for him die down. He arrived in St. Joseph from Kansas City in November 1881 with his wife and two small children, a boy and a girl, aged seven and three. For two months Jesse, under the assumed name of Thomas Howard, rented a house at Twenty-first and Lafayette Streets. Then the family moved to 1318 Lafayette Street, paying rent of $14 a month.

At this point, the story can be best told in the words of Mr. Finis C. Farr who had been private secretary to the governor of Missouri, T. T. Crittenden, as reported in the Kansas City Star of October 20, 1895: “Mr. Crittenden was inaugurated Governor of Missouri in January, 1881, and a short time after his inauguration the robbery of the Rock Island train occurred at Winston. In this robbery the conductor of the train and a stone mason, who was a passenger, were killed, as was generally supposed, by the James gang. A great number of robberies of trains and banks had been done in Missouri prior to that time, and preceding Governors, Sheriffs, and other officials had tried in vain to break up the James gang. After the Winston robbery the complaints were so loud that the State was being discredited by these robberies that Governor Crittenden began to cast about him to see if there was any means by which the gang could be rounded up. He came to the conclusion that the only way to do it was to offer a reward large enough to appeal to the cupidity of the members of the gang and bribe them to betray their chiefs.

But the Governor's hands were virtually tied because of the inadequacy of the law, which fixed $300 as the maximum amount of reward that could be offered for the apprehension of a criminal. He knew that it would be folly to offer a reward of that size for the capture of any members of the James gang. The express companies and railroads, through their representatives, had many conferences with the Governor. As a result of these conferences, the railroad and express companies deposited with the Governor enough money to make up the largest reward ever offered in the world for the capture of a gang of robbers, and Governor Crittenden issued his famous proclamation, which has been so long and flagrantly misrepresented by the press and people alike. He offered a reward of $5,000 each for the apprehension of Jesse James, Frank James, Dick Liddle, Wood Hite, Jim Cummings and other members of the James gang, and $5,000 additional was offered for the conviction of either or both Jesse or Frank James for complicity in the Winston robbery.

‘Governor Crittenden did not offer a reward for the capture, dead or alive, of any member of the gang. He had no authority to offer a reward for a man alive or dead, and there was not a syllable in the proclamation indicating a reward for the dead body of any man. I sent out hundreds of these printed proclamations in October, 1881, and they soon produced the intended effect.

‘Two of Governor Crittenden's chief advisers were Sheriff James R. Timberlake of Clay County and H. H. Craig, Police Commissioner of Kansas City. Both were brave, determined and discreet men. “Within sixty days after the issuance of the proclamation Dick Liddle began to make overtures for surrender to Timberlake and Craig through his sweetheart, Mattie Collins, who also had an interview with Governor Crittenden. The result was that Liddle surrendered to Sheriff Timberlake on terms which required him to assist in the capture of the rest of the gang.

‘Later Bob Ford, who was living in Ray County with his uncle, Captain Ford, went to Sheriff Timberlake and informed him he believed Jesse James was hiding in Northwest Missouri somewhere, but he did not know where. He said his brother, Charlie Ford, was with Jesse James, and, said Ford: “I believe Jesse will be after me before long to help him hold up something.'

‘Timberlake well knew that Bob Ford had been with Jesse James on more than one expedition, and for that reason he placed a great deal of reliance on what Ford said, especially as Ford seemed anxious to win the reward. He instructed Ford to go with Jesse when he came after him. He was to keep Timberlake posted on everything that happened, and when he had Jesse James located, he was to notify Timberlake by telegram or mail, so that a posse could be formed for his capture.

‘Nothing was said about the killing of Jesse James, nor was it thought of

‘On the night of April 1, 1882, Jesse James rode up to the house of Captain Ford, in Ray County, and called Bob outside. He told him he had work for him to do, and the two rode away together. The next day Captain Ford notified Sheriff Timberlake that Bob had gone to St. Joseph with Jesse James, and the Sheriff, acting on this information, notified the members of his posse to be ready to go at a moment's notice, and kept a Hannibal engine in the round house with steam up day and night to carry the posse to St. Joseph. Dick Liddle was to head the posse, and he assured Sheriff Timberlake that he would be the first man to enter a house for Jesse. “But we'll never take Jesse alive; he'll shoot with both hands as long as he can stand up,” said Liddle to the Sheriff, Governor Crittenden was kept informed of every move made by Sheriff Timberlake.

‘Several days went by and no word came from Ford, and then, on April 3, at about 10 o'clock, telegrams were received by Sheriff Timberlake at the executive mansion in Jefferson City, announcing that Ford had shot and killed Jesse James. I was alone in the Governor's private office when the telegram came. It was addressed to the Governor, but he was in St. Louis on business, and I opened it, as I did all his letters and telegrams in his absence. The telegram read:

“I have killed Jesse James.

St. Joseph Bob Ford.”

‘I immediately telegraphed the authorities at St. Joseph for particulars, and in reply was informed that Jesse James had been shot and killed by Bob and Charlie Ford, who had been arrested and were in jail. Governor Crittenden reached Jefferson City from St. Louis on the noon train, and I met him at the depot. When he stepped off the train I shook hands with him and said:

‘ “Governor, they’ve captured Jesse James.' \* "Have they, indeed? Did Timberlake get him?”

‘ “No, Bob and Charlie Ford killed him this morning.'

‘I handed the Governor the telegrams, and after he had read them, we walked together to the Executive Mansion, discussing as we went the probable reason for the killing and how it was done. The Governor said over and over again that he regretted they did not capture him alive.

‘Later on, after Bob Ford had pleaded guilty to murder and had been pardoned, he told the Governor in my presence the story of the killing. He related it in a dramatic manner, with a carelessness as to detail which convinced us he was telling the truth. This was his story:

‘ “When Jesse came to me at my uncle's that night he told me that my brother Charlie was with him and that they planned to rob the Platte City Bank. It would take three men to do the job, and he needed my help. After we got to his house in the suburbs of St. Joseph he seemed suspicious of me for some reason and never allowed me out of his sight for even a moment. He had me sleep in the same room with him, and he even followed me when I would go out to the stable. He seemed to pay no attention to Charlie, but watched me so closely that I had no chance to communicate with Timberlake. Each morning before breakfast he would take me downtown with him to get the morning papers, which he read every day. He would buy the St. Joseph and St. Louis papers, and I wanted to get the Kansas City papers, and after we had read them we would exchange. Timberlake had told me that I must keep the papers from Jesse if I could, as the reporters were on to the fact that something was in the wind, and it might leak out and be published that Dick Liddle had surrendered, which fact, up to that time, had been kept out of the papers.

‘Soon after my arrival in St. Joseph, Jesse questioned me closely about Dick Liddle, and I told him I had not heard anything about him for a long time.

‘ “The days kept slipping by and it was getting hotter for me every hour. I knew anything might happen at any time to tip my hand to Jess, and I scanned the papers each morning eagerly. On the morning of April 3, Jess and I went downtown, as usual, before breakfast, for the papers. We were to go that night to Platte City to rob the bank, and I had made up my mind that I was in for a raid on the bank sure enough. We got back to the house about eight o'clock and sat down in the front room. Jess was sitting in front of me, with his back to me, reading the St. Louis Republican. I looked over the Kansas City Journal’ first, and seeing nothing of interest, I threw it on the bed and picked up the "Times', and the first thing I saw in big headlines, almost a foot long on the first page, was the story about Dick Liddle's surrender. Just then Mrs. James came in from the kitchen and said breakfast was ready. My only thought then was to hide the paper from Jess. Beside me was a chair with a shawl on it, and as quick as a flash I lifted it and shoved the paper under. Jess couldn't have seen me, but he got up walked over to the chair, picked up the shawl and threw it on the bed and taking the paper, went out to the kitchen. I felt that the jig was up, but I followed and sat down at the table opposite Jess. I moved my belt around so that my revolver was close to my right hand. I proposed to die game if Jess began to shoot.

‘ “Mrs. James poured out the coffee and then sat down at one end of the table. Charlie was at the other end, and the two children sat one on each side of their mother. Jesse spread the paper on the table in front of him and sort of folded his hands on it and began to look over the headlines. My heart went up in my throat, and I couldn't have eaten a bite then to save my life. All at once Jess said: “Hello, here. The surrender of Dick Liddle, and he looked across at me with a glare in his eyes I had seen there before.

‘ “Young man, I thought you told me you didn't know that Dick had surrendered,' he said.

‘ “I told him I didn't know it.

‘ “Well, he said, "it's very strange. He surrendered three weeks ago and you was right there in the neighborhood. It looks fishy.'

‘ “He continued to glare at me, and I got up and went into the front room again. In a minute I heard Jess push his chair back and walk to the door. I expected the shooting to begin right there, and if it had Jess would have got me, for I was nervous. But he came in smiling, and said pleasantly: “Well, Bob, it's all right, any way.

‘ “Instantly his real purpose flashed upon my mind. I knew I had not fooled him. He was too sharp for that. He knew at that moment as well as I did that I was there to betray him. But he was not going to kill me in the presence of his wife and children, and so he was smiling and pleasant to throw me off my guard, intending when we were on the road to rob the bank that night to finish me. He walked over to the bed, and deliberately unbuckled his belt, with four revolvers in it, and threw it on the bed. It was the first time in my life I had seen him without that belt on, and I knew in an instant that he threw it off to further quiet any suspicions I might have that he had tumbled to my scheme.

‘ “He seemed to want to busy himself with something to make an impression on my mind that he had forgotten the incident of a moment before at the breakfast table, and he picked up a dust brush from the table, and said: "That picture is awful dusty.

‘ “There wasn't a speck of dust that I could see on the picture, but he stood on a chair beneath it and then got upon it and began to dust the picture on the wall.

‘ “Up to that moment the thought of killing him had never entered my mind, but as he stood there, unarmed, with his back to me, it came to me suddenly, “Now or never is your chance. If you don't get him now he'll get you tonight.'

“Without further thought or a moment's delay I pulled my revolver and leveled it as Isat. He heard the hammer click as I cocked it with my thumb in throwing it down on a line with his head. He recognized the sound and started to turn as I pulled the trigger. The ball struck him just behind the ear and he fell like a log, dead. I didn't go near his body. I knew when I saw that 44-caliber bullet strike that it was all up with Jess.

‘ “Charlie ran into the room and right behind was Mrs. James, who began to mourn and upbraid me. I called a passer-by who was going toward town and told him to notify the police that we had killed Jesse James. In a little while the officials came and we surrendered.'

‘“That is the story told to us by Bob Ford and corroborated by Charlie and others,' said Mr. Farr. “I have never had reason to doubt its truthfulness.' '

The Ford brothers surrendered to the authorities, were placed in jail, and two weeks later, on April 17, they entered pleas of guilty. The Prosecuting Attorney was O. M. Spencer, and they were sentenced to hang. Two days later Governor Crittenden granted them unconditional pardons and they divided a $10,000 reward between them. [On the evening of April 18, Oscar Wilde, on his American tour, spoke in knee breeches at the Tootle Theatre on “The English Renaissance.’ The small audience was not enthusiastic.]

The Fords did not enjoy their prosperity for long. Less than two years later, Charlie Ford, aged twenty-four, committed suicide by shooting himself in his father's house near Richmond, Missouri. It was believed that his body was riddled with disease. Bob Ford, two years younger than his brother, went west to the boom mining town of Creede, in southwest Colorado. There he opened a saloon, dance hall, and gambling house. On June 8, 1892, he was shot and killed by Ed. Kelly, deputy sheriff. His body was returned to Richmond, Missouri, for burial.

Even at the time of the shooting in St. Joseph, a few voices were raised questioning whether the man killed was really Jesse James. The grief and violence of the reactions of Mrs. James and Mrs. Samuels, wife and mother of the slain man, were so genuine that the public generally accepted, without question, that the outlaw had been killed. Sheriff Timberlake of Clay County, who had known Jesse, and neighbors identified the body. It carried the proper scars and the tip of one finger had been shot off, as was true of Jesse. Many years later claims were made that the entire episode was a plot devised by the James gang to shoot another man, thus obtaining the cash reward from the state of Missouri and also enabling Jesse to retire from public notice with substantial proceeds of his robberies. After ninety years, the most credible evidence seems to be the almost universal belief of the citizens of St. Joseph and Missouri in 1882 that the real Jesse James had met his end.