Jesse and Frank James

American outlaws

• Frank James
• Born: January 10, 1843
• Birthplace: Centerville (now Kearney), Missouri
• Died: February 18, 1915
• Place of death: Near Kearney, Missouri

• Jesse James
• Born: September 5, 1847
• Birthplace: Near Centerville (now Kearney), Missouri
• Died: April 3, 1882
• Place of death: St. Joseph, Missouri

Although Jesse and Frank James won notoriety and lasting fame as criminals, they were regarded as heroes by many southerners who had suffered during the Civil War and harbored deep, bitter feelings toward the North.

Early Lives

Frank and Jesse James were the sons of Robert and Zeralda James of Kearney, Missouri. The brothers had a difficult childhood. In 1850, while they were both still very young, their father left his family to prospect for gold in California, where he later died from food poisoning. Their mother’s second husband, Benjamin Simms, died in a horse accident. In 1855, their mother married a third husband—Dr. Reuben Samuel, a general practitioner and farmer. The James brothers learned the farming trade.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, it disrupted the peaceful farming life in Missouri. Frank and Jesse’s parents owned slaves and supported the Confederate cause. On more than one occasion, reportedly, the family was treated harshly by Union soldiers who were occupying Missouri. Frank joined the Missouri State Guards, a force sympathetic to the Confederacy, on May 4, 1861. During the summer of 1862, he and his cousins, Cole and Jim Younger, joined a Confederate guerrilla band led by William Clarke Quantrill. Working as renegades, they robbed mail coaches, plundered towns that supported the Union, and murdered members of the Union Army and supporters of President Abraham Lincoln.

On August 21, 1863, Frank James participated in Quantrill’s bloody attack on Lawrence, Kansas, in which nearly two hundred unarmed persons were murdered and 180 buildings burned. On September 20, 1864, Jesse James rode with a Quantrill group led by “Bloody” Bill Anderson into Centralia, Missouri, where the band robbed an incoming train and killed twenty-four unarmed Union soldiers. After a general amnesty for Confederate guerrillas was issued in 1865, Jesse and Frank rode to Lexington, Missouri, to surrender. On the way into town, federal soldiers opened fire on them, wounding Jesse in the chest. The James brothers were able to escape, but with increased feelings of embitterment toward the United States political establishment.

Lives’ Work

In January, 1866, Jesse and Frank James formed a band of outlaws in partnership with their cousins, the Younger brothers. Under the direction of Frank James and Cole Younger, the gang robbed the Clay County Savings Association Bank in Liberty, Missouri, on February 13, 1866. They killed a teenage boy and got away with more than sixty thousand dollars. During this robbery, Jesse James was still at home recovering from his chest wounds.

During the gang’s next exploit, Jesse led it in the robbery of the Hughes and Mason Bank in Richmond, Missouri, on May 22, 1867. This was followed by the robbery of the Southern Deposit Bank in Russellville, Kentucky, on March 20, 1868, that netted the gang fourteen thousand dollars. Through late 1868 and most of 1869, Jesse and Frank spent much of their time hiding out in the Nashville, Tennessee, area.

On December 7, 1869, the gang went back into action, robbing the Davies County Savings Bank in Gallatin, Missouri. While Jesse and Frank posed as customers, one of them shot the bank clerk, John Sheets. They made off with about seven hundred dollars. Now facing murder charges, Jesse and Frank James were placed on the most-wanted list of outlaws. Between 1866 and 1873, their gang held up numerous banks, and their fame and legend grew. Jesse and Frank James were considered heroes by many southerners and by the less fortunate, with whom they reportedly shared some of their stolen loot—a story reminiscent of the legendary Robin Hood.

As bank security improved and time-lock vaults replaced many of the older combination-lock vaults, it became increasingly risky to rob banks, so the James-Younger gang turned to robbing trains and stagecoaches. On July 21, 1873, they removed a section of railroad tracks near Adair, Iowa, and held up the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Express. However, for this daring exploit, they collected only about three thousand dollars from the train’s safe and passengers. On January 15, 1874, the gang robbed a stagecoach for the first time—the Concord Stage, near Malvern, Arkansas. Only sixteen days later, they held up the Little Rock Express train near Gadshill, Missouri, and rode away with twenty-two thousand dollars in cash and gold.

On April 23, 1874, Jesse James married his cousin Zee Mimms in Kansas City, Missouri. They had two children, whom Jesse adored. During the following June, Frank married Anna Ralston. With Pinkerton detectives in hot pursuit, the James brothers moved frequently and expanded their area of operation to encompass several states. They robbed the San Antonio Stage near San Antonio, Texas, on May 12, 1875; a bank in Huntington, Virginia, on September 6, 1875; and a Missouri-Pacific train near Otterville, Missouri, on July 7, 1876. The three robberies netted more than forty thousand dollars.

While attempting to rob the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota, on September 7, 1876, the James-Younger gang encountered stiff resistance from the town’s citizens and law officers. Cole, Jim, and Bob Younger were wounded and captured, and three other gang members were killed. Jesse and Frank James were wounded but managed to escape to North Dakota and then return to Missouri. Over the next three years, Jesse and Frank laid low and kept moving about to avoid the law. They took on various aliases, lived on small farms in Tennessee and Kentucky, and prospected for gold in California and Colorado.

During the fall of 1879, Jesse James organized a new gang that included Charlie and Robert Ford. Between October of that year and September, 1881, this gang robbed five trains—the last on September 7, 1881, when they held up a train near Glendale, Missouri. In the meantime, Missouri governor Thomas T. Crittenden offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for the capture of the James brothers.

On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was shot in the back of the head and killed by Robert Ford while he was adjusting a picture on a wall of his home. Ford apparently killed him for reward money and publicity. Although there were many claims that it was another man who had been killed, an examination of the body performed by a doctor on the night of the murder, as well as DNA testing on the exhumed remains in 1995, confirmed that the murdered man was indeed Jesse James.

After eluding the law for several more months, Frank James surrendered on October 5, 1882. He was released in 1885 and never returned to crime. To earn a living, he spent the last thirty years of his life doing a variety of jobs. He farmed, sold shoes, performed in a circus, and served as an usher, a doorman, and a bouncer in a saloon. He also turned the James family farm into a museum, at which he charged visitors thirty cents to view the grave of his brother Jesse.

Significance

The James brothers gained notoriety as ruthless bandits who were at odds with the U.S. government. Because of their deep affection for the South and adverse feelings toward the North during the Civil War, they developed strong antigovernment attitudes that made them folk heroes in the eyes of many Confederate sympathizers. Their reputation was embellished by their legendary bank, stagecoach, and train robberies and stories that they shared their loot with the less fortunate. During their fifteen-year careers as outlaws, they robbed at least twelve banks, seven trains, four stagecoaches, and a county fair in Kansas City.

As the James brothers and their gang took out their wrath on an industrial society that was fast replacing the old agricultural lifestyle of America, many supporters saw them as the last remaining evidence of the South and the society that they once loved. Jesse James, in particular, became a symbol of the individuality that characterized the American West. The James brothers lives have been remembered in many books and movies, as well as a melodramatic ballad that was written about Jesse James one day after he was murdered.

Bibliography

Block, Lawrence, ed. Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers, and Thieves: The Lives and Crimes of Fifty American Villains. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Insights into the lives and misdeeds of fifty notorious criminals, from John Wilkes Booth and Jesse James to Machine Gun Kelly.

Stiles, T. J. Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. Stiles explores the complicated life of Jesse James, addressing why he became a legend, and why he may be classified as the forerunner of a modern terrorist.

Tolzmann, Don. Lives and Exploits of the Daring Frank and Jesse James. Westminister, Md.: Heritage Books, 1992. Facts and myths are explored about the lives and outlaw careers of the notorious James brothers.

Yeatman, Ted P. Frank and Jesse James: The Story Behind the Legend. Nashville, Tenn.: Cumberland House, 2003. A detailed biography of the lives of Frank and Jesse James, from their births, to their days with William Quantrill’s raiders, to their escapades as bank robbers, train robbers, and murderers.