Clark
Family name
A scribe or clerk, the occupation from which the name derives
Meaning	Clerk, scribe, secretary
Region of origin	England
Language(s) of origin	Old English
Related names	Clarke, Clerk
Footnotes: Frequency Comparisons[1]

Clark is an English surname in the English language, ultimately derived from the Latin clericus meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educated or a old man with a moustache. Clark evolved from "clerk". First records of the name are found in 12th century England. The name has many variants.^[2]

Clark is the twenty-seventh most common surname in the United Kingdom.^[1]

According to the 1990 United States Census, Clark was the twenty-first most frequently encountered surname, accounting for 0.23% of the population.^[3]

Clark is also an occasional given name, as in the case of Clark Gable.

Probably the most famouse person named Clark is Clark Kent a.k.a. Superman

List of people with surname Clark[link]

People with the surname Clark include:

• Abraham Clark (1725–1794), American politician and Revolutionary War figure
• Alan Clark (1928–1999), British Conservative politician and author, son of Kenneth Clark
• Allen George Clark (1898–1962), British businessman
• Andy Clark (musician), British musician
• Anne Clark (born 1960), poet-songwriter
• Benjamin S. W. Clark (1829–1912), New York politician
• Billy J. Clark (1778–1866), New York physician and politician
• Bob Clark (Benjamin "Bob" Clark) (1941–2007), American director
• Brian Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Buddy Clark (1911–1949), American singer
• Carmel Clark (born 1965), New Zealand swimmer
• Catherine Clark (born 1976), Canadian television host
• Charles Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Chris Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Christian Clark (born 1979), Australian actor
• Claudine Clark, R&B singer and performer of the 1962 hit record "Party Lights"
• Colin Clark (disambiguation)
• Corrie Clark (born 1982), American breaststroke swimmer
• Dallas Clark, American football player
• Daniel Clark (Canadian politician and actor), Canadian actor
• Daniel Kinnear Clark (1822–1896), British railway mechanical engineer
• Darius Clark (1798–1871), New York physician and politician
• Dave Clark (musician) (born 1942), drummer of The Dave Clark Five
• David Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Davis Wasgatt Clark (1812–1871), American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church
• Dick Clark (disambiguation), several people
  • Dick Clark (1929–2012), entertainer and producer, host of Pyramid and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve
• Douglas Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Duncan Clark (1910–2007), an American public health specialist
• Duncan Clark (athlete) (1915–2003), Scottish hammer thrower
• Dwight Clark, American football player
• Ernest Clark (1912–1994), British actor
• Eugene Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Frank Clark (footballer), English football player
  • Frank M. Clark (1915–2003), American Congressman
• Gavin Brown Clark (1846–1930), MP for Caithness
• George Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Gerry Clark (1927–1999), New Zealand sailor and ornithologist
• Ginger Clark (1879–1943), American baseball pitcher
• Glenn Clark (born 1969), Canadian coach of Toronto Rock
• Helen Clark (born 1950), Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008
• Hilda Clark (1872–1932), American Coca-Cola advertising spokesperson
• Hilda Margery Clarke (born 1926), English painter and curator
• Horace Clark, 1830s New York politician
• Horace F. Clark (1815–1873), US Congressman from New York
• Hugh Massey Clark (1886–1956), New York philatelist
• Hulda Regehr Clark, alternative medicine practitioner
• Isabella Clark, wife of Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald
• Jack Clark (disambiguation), several people
• James Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Jeff Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Joe Clark (born 1939), former Prime Minister of Canada
• John Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Jonas Gilman Clark (1815–1900), American businessman and the founder of Clark University
• Joseph Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Joshua Clark, (born 1980), American writer
• Karen Clark (born 1945), American politician from Minnesota
• Katy Clark (born 1967), British politician and trade union official
• Kenneth Clark (psychologist) (1914–2005), African American psychologist who testified in Brown v. Board of Education
• Kenneth Clark (1902–1983), British art historian; creator of the series Civilisation
• Leslie J. Clark (1924–2003), British engineer and founder of Parvalux
• Louis Clark, musician and conductor with the Orchestra (former members of ELO and ELO Part II)
• Manning Clark (1915–1991), Australian historian
• Marcus R. Clark (born 1956), Louisiana Supreme Court justice
• Mark Wayne Clark (1896–1984), American Army General in WW2 (Italy) and the Korean War
• Nancy B. Clark, person of Marstons Mills, Massachusetts
• Ocky Clark (born 1960), American middle distance runner
• Orville Clark (1801–1862), New York politician
• Otey Clark (born 1915), American baseball pitcher
• Ramsey Clark (born 1927), U.S. Attorney General and activist
• Ranza Clark (born 1961), Canadian middle distance runner
• Roger Clark, British rally driver
• Ryan Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Samuel Clark (disambiguation), several people
  • Samuel Delbert Clark (1910–2003), Canadian sociologist
• Sherman Clark (1899–1980), American Olympic rower and Rear Admiral
• Simon Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Steve Clark (1960–1991), British guitarist for Def Leppard
• Stuart Clark (born 1975), Australian cricketer
• Theresa Maria Clark (c. 1890 – 1953), person of New York
• Thomas Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Tom Clark (journalist), Canadian television journalist
• Tom C. Clark (1899–1977), U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Supreme Court justice
• Tracy Clark, fictional character from The CW primetime drama 90210
• Wendel Clark (born 1966), retired Canadian ice hockey player
• Wesley K. Clark (born 1944), American Army General in the Vietnam War and Kosovo
• Wilfrid Le Gros Clark (1895–1971), British palaeanthropologist
• Will Clark (born 1964), American baseball player
• William Clark (disambiguation), several people

See also[link]

• The Clark Sisters, American gospel vocalists from Detroit
• Clark (taxonomic authority)
• Clarke
• Clerke (disambiguation)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Clark(e) Surname DNA Project

This page or section lists people with the surname Clark. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.

Roy Rogers
Rogers performing at Knott's Berry Farm
Background information
Birth name	Leonard Franklin Slye
Born	(1911-11-05)November 5, 1911 Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Died	July 6, 1998(1998-07-06) (aged 86) Apple Valley, California, USA
Genres	Country
Occupations	Actor, singer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1932–1998
Website	royrogers.com

Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye (November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998), was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain. He and his wife Dale Evans, his golden palomino, Trigger, and his German Shepherd dog, Bullet, were featured in more than 100 movies and The Roy Rogers Show. The show ran on radio for nine years before moving to television from 1951 through 1957. His productions usually featured a sidekick, often either Pat Brady (who drove a Jeep called "Nellybelle"), Andy Devine, or the crotchety George "Gabby" Hayes. Rogers's nickname was "King of the Cowboys". Evans's nickname was "Queen of the West."

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010)

Leonard Franklin Slye was born to Andrew ("Andy") and Mattie (Womack) Slye in Cincinnati, Ohio, where his family lived in a tenement building on 2nd Street. (Riverfront Stadium was constructed at this location in 1970 and Leonard would later joke that he had been born at second base.) Dissatisfied with his job and city life, Andy Slye and his brother Will built a 12-by-50-foot houseboat from salvage lumber, and, in July 1912, the Slye family floated up the Ohio River towards Portsmouth, Ohio. Desiring a more stable existence in Portsmouth, the Slyes purchased land on which to build a home, but the flood of 1913 allowed them to move the houseboat to their property and continue living in it on dry land.

In 1919, the Slyes purchased a farm in Duck Run, located near Lucasville, Ohio about 12 miles north of Portsmouth. There they built a six-room home. Leonard's father soon realized that the farm alone would provide insufficient income for his family, so he took a job at a shoe factory in Portsmouth. He lived there during the week and returned home on the weekends, bearing gifts for the family following paydays. One notable gift was a horse on which Leonard learned the basics of horsemanship.

After completing the eighth grade, Leonard attended high school in McDermott, Ohio. When he was 17, his family returned to Cincinnati, where his father began work at another shoe factory. He soon decided on the necessity to help his family financially, so he quit high school, joined his father at the shoe factory, and began attending night school. After being ridiculed for falling asleep in class, however, he quit school and never returned.

Leonard and his father felt imprisoned by their factory jobs. In 1929, his older sister, Mary, moved to Lawndale, California with her husband. Father and son decided to quit their shoe factory jobs. The family packed their 1923 Dodge for a visit with Mary and stayed four months before returning to Ohio. Almost immediately afterward, Leonard had the opportunity to travel to California with Mary's father-in-law, and the rest of the family followed in the spring of 1930.

The Slyes rented a small house near Mary. Leonard and his father immediately found employment as truck drivers for a highway construction project. They reported to work one morning, however, to learn their employer had gone bankrupt. The economic hardship of the Great Depression had followed them west, and the Slyes soon found themselves among the economic refugees traveling from job to job picking fruit and living in worker campsites. (He would later read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and marvel at its accuracy.) One day, Andy Slye was told of a shoe factory hiring in Los Angeles and asked Leonard to join him in applying there for work. Leonard, having seen the joy that his guitar and singing had brought to the destitute around the campfires, hesitantly told his father that he was going to pursue a living in music. With his father's blessing, he and cousin Stanley Slye went to Los Angeles and sought musical engagements as The Slye Brothers.

In 1932, Leonard, now known as "Len," met Lucille Ascolese while on tour. That same year, a palomino colt was foaled in Santa Cietro, CA, named "Golden Cloud", and later renamed "Trigger" in 1938 after he was acquired by Roy. In May 1933, Len, 21, proposed to Lucille, 19, via a radio broadcast. Len then went on tour with the "O-Bar-O Cowboys" and in June 1933 met Grace Arline Wilkins at a Roswell, New Mexico radio station. She traded Len a lemon pie for his singing "Swiss Yodel" over the air. By August 1934, Len and Lucille had separated as she was reportedly jealous and tired of being a musician's wife. Len and Lucille's divorce was granted on May 28, 1935, and became final on June 8, 1936. Having corresponded since their first meeting, Len and Grace Arline Wilkins were married in Roswell, New Mexico, on June 11, 1936.^[1]

In 1941, the couple adopted a girl, Cheryl Darlene. Two years later, Arline bore a daughter, Linda Lou.

Rogers and Arline had a son, Roy Jr. ("Dusty") in 1946, but Arline died of complications from the birth a few days afterward on November 3. Rogers had met Dale Evans in 1944 when she was cast in a movie with Rogers. Following Arline's death, Rogers and Evans soon fell in love, and Rogers proposed to her during a rodeo at Chicago Stadium. They married on New Year's Eve in 1947 at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma, where a few months earlier they had filmed Home in Oklahoma. Rogers and Evans remained married until Rogers's death in 1998.^[1]

Career[link]

Leonard Slye moved to California to become a singer. After four years of little success, he formed the Sons of the Pioneers with Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer, a Western cowboy music group, in 1934. The group hit it big with songs like "Cool Water" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds". From his first film appearance in 1935, he worked steadily in western films, including a large supporting role as a singing cowboy while still billed as "Leonard Slye" in a Gene Autry movie. In 1938, when Autry temporarily walked out on his movie contract, Slye was immediately rechristened "Roy Rogers." Slye's stage name was suggested by Republic Picture's staff after Will Rogers and the shortening of Leroy. and assigned the lead in Under Western Stars. Rogers became a matinee idol and American legend. A competitor for Gene Autry as the nation's favorite singing cowboy was suddenly born. In addition to his own movies, Rogers played a supporting role in the John Wayne classic Dark Command (1940). Rogers became a major box office attraction.

Roy Rogers in The Carson City Kid

In the Motion Picture Herald Top Ten Money-Making Western Stars poll, Rogers was listed for 15 consecutive years from 1939 to 1954, holding first place from 1943 to 1954.^[2] He appeared in the similar Box Office poll from 1938 to 1955, holding first place from 1943 to 1952. (In the final three years of that poll he was second only to Randolph Scott.) ^[3] Although these two polls are really an indication only of the popularity of series stars, Rogers also appeared in the Top Ten Money Makers Poll of all films in 1945 and 1946.^[4]

Rogers was an idol for many children through his films and television shows. Most of his postwar films were in Trucolor during an era when almost all other B-movies were black-and-white. Some of his movies would segue into animal adventures, in which Rogers's horse Trigger would go off on his own for a while, with the camera following him.

With money from not only Rogers' films but his own public appearances going to Republic Pictures, Rogers brought a clause into a 1940 contract with the studio where he would have the right to his likeness, voice and name for merchandising.^[5] There were Roy Rogers action figures, cowboy adventure novels, and playsets, as well as a comic strip, a long-lived Dell Comics comic book series (Roy Rogers Comics) written by Gaylord Du Bois, and a variety of marketing successes. Roy Rogers was second only to Walt Disney in the amount of items featuring his name.^[6] The Sons of the Pioneers continued their popularity, and they have never stopped performing from the time Rogers started the group, replacing members as they retired or passed away (all original members are deceased). Although Rogers was no longer an active member, they often appeared as Rogers' backup group in films, radio, and television, and Rogers would occasionally appear with them in performances up until his death. In August 1950, Evans and Rogers had a daughter, Robin Elizabeth, who had Down Syndrome and died of complications with mumps shortly before her second birthday. Evans wrote about losing their daughter in her book Angel Unaware.

Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers in the film, Rainbow Over Texas

Rogers and Evans were also well known as advocates for adoption and as founders and operators of children's charities. They adopted several children. Both were outspoken Christians. In Apple Valley, California, where they made their home, numerous streets and highways as well as civic buildings have been named after them in recognition of their efforts on behalf of homeless and handicapped children. Rogers was an active Freemason and a Shriner, and was noted for his support of their charities.

Rogers and Evans's famous theme song, "Happy Trails", was written by Evans; they sang it as a duet to sign off their television show. In the fall of 1962, the couple co-hosted a comedy-western-variety program, The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show, aired on ABC. It was cancelled after three months, losing in the ratings to The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS. He also made numerous cameo or guest appearances on other popular television shows, starring as himself or other cowboy-type characters, such as in an episode of Wonder Woman called "The Bushwackers".^[7] Rogers also owned a Hollywood production company which handled his own series. It also filmed other undertakings, including the 1955-1956 CBS western series Brave Eagle starring Keith Larsen as a young peaceful Cheyenne chief, Kim Winona as Morning Star, his romantic interest, and the Hopi Indian Anthony Numkena as Keena, Brave Eagle's foster son.

Rogers and Dale Evans at the 61st Academy Awards in 1989

In 1968 Rogers licensed his name to the Marriot corporation, which converted its Hot Shoppes locations to Roy Rogers Restaurants, with which Rogers otherwise had no involvement.

Rogers owned a Thoroughbred racehorse named Triggairo, who won 13 career races including the 1975 El Encino Stakes at Santa Anita Park.^[8]

Death[link]

When Rogers died of congestive heart failure on July 6, 1998, he was residing in Apple Valley, California. He was interred at Sunset Hills Cemetery ^[9] in Apple Valley, as was his wife, Dale Evans, three years later.^[10]

Homages and influence[link]

Rogers and Dale Evans at Knott's Berry Farm in the 1970s

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Rogers has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1752 Vine Street, a second star at 1733 Vine Street for his contribution to radio, and a third star at 1620 Vine Street for his contribution to the television industry. Rogers and Evans were inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1976 and Rogers was inducted again as a member of the Sons of the Pioneers in 1995. Rogers was also twice elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, first as a member of The Sons of the Pioneers in 1980 and as a soloist in 1988.

Rogers was mentioned in the Lyle Lovett single "If I Had A Boat", Elton John's 1973 album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" contained the escapist ballad "Roy Rogers", and Toby Keith's "Should've Been A Cowboy".

In the 1988 film Die Hard, the Bruce Willis character John McClane used the nom de guerre of "Roy", saying "I was always kinda partial to Roy Rogers actually".

American Dad character Roger uses "Roy Rogers" as a pseudonym in the episode "Roy Rogers McFreely".

Cheryl Rogers Barnett, a daughter of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, has written with Frank Thompson; Cowboy Princess: Life with My Parents, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans'.^[11]

Filmography[link]

Discography[link]

Charted albums[link]

Charted singles[link]

• ^A"Hoppy, Gene and Me" also peaked at number 65 on the Billboard Hot 100^[12] and number 38 on the RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks chart in Canada.

Music videos[link]

Popular songs recorded by Rogers[link]

• "Don't Fence Me In"
• "Hold That Critter Down"
• "Little White Cross On The Hill"
• "One More Ride"
• "Ride Ranger Ride"
• "That Pioneer Mother Of Mine"
• "Tumbling Tumbleweeds"
• "Way Out There" (singing and yodeling)
• "Why, Oh Why, Did I Ever Leave Wyoming?"
• "Hold On Partner" (duet with Clint Black)

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Roy Rogers

• Roy Rogers Restaurants
• Roy Rogers cocktail
• Earl W. Bascom, cowboy artist who worked with Roy Rogers

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Rogers, Roy; Evans, Dale; Stowers, Carlton (1979). Happy Trails: The Story of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Waco, Texas: Word Books. ISBN 0-8499-0086-7. 
• Enss, Chris; Kazanjian, Howard (2005). The Cowboy and the Senorita: A Biography of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (1st ed.). Guilford, CT: TwoDot. ISBN 978-0-7627-3830-4. 
• Phillips, Robert W. (1995). Roy Rogers : A Biography. Jefferson, NC [u.a.]: McFarland. ISBN 0-89950-937-1. 
• Zwisohn, Laurence. (1998). "Roy Rogers". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 456–457.

External links[link]

• Roy Rogers at the Internet Movie Database
• Official family website
• Database and Cover gallery of Roy Rogers comic book appearances
• Roy Rogers Ranch
• Interview with Delores Chapman who had a bit part with Roy Rogers in North of the Great Divide
• Profile at Turner Classic Movies
• Roy Rogers at the Internet Broadway Database
• Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
• Dusty Rhoads: Cowboy Bassist and vocalist who toured with Roy Rogers; original member of the Whippoorwills
• I Love Comix Archive: Roy Rogers
• The Ackerman Collection of Historical Photographs
• RFD-TV Trigger and Bullet Happy Trails Tour
• Public domain Roy Rogers media at Internet Archive
• "Roy & Dale 100th Anniversary"

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008)

Helen Parrish (12 March 1924, Columbus, Georgia – 22 February 1959) was an American movie actress, the daughter of stage and bit film actress Laura Parrish.

Career[link]

She started in movies at the age of five, getting her first part playing Babe Ruth's daughter in the silent film, Babe Comes Home in 1927. She featured in the Our Gang comedy shorts and sometimes played the lead character as a child co-starring some of the great female stars of the day. In her teens she made herself known as a kid sister. But during this time, she is probably most notable as an irritant of Deanna Durbin in several of her vehicles, playing a jealous, spiteful rival. Their first film together, Mad About Music (1938), worked so well that they soon formed a sort of Shirley Temple/Jane Withers team in a couple of other movie confections for Universal. In their second film together, Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939), Parrish replaced Barbara Read as sister Kay Craig.

Her films were pleasant but unexceptional and in the "B" caliber, including X Marks the Spot (1931), When a Feller Needs a Friend (1932), A Dog of Flanders (1935), I'm Nobody's Sweetheart Now (1940), Too Many Blondes (1941), X Marks the Spot (1942; a remake of her earlier film), and The Wolf Hunters (1949).

By her mid-twenties she left motion pictures and turned to television, one notable role being that of Geraldine Rutherford on the first season of the American television situation comedy Leave It to Beaver.

Family[link]

Her brother, Robert Parrish, was a minor child actor who earned respect as a film editor and director and her other sister Beverly Parrish, died suddenly at the age of 11 after filming only one movie. Her first husband was screenwriter Charles Lang and her second was television producer John Guedel, who survived her.

Death[link]

Parrish died from cancer in Hollywood, California in 1959.

Selected filmography[link]

• Little Tough Guy (1938)
• In Old California (1942)
• They All Kissed the Bride (1942)
• Trouble Makers (1948)

External links[link]

• Helen Parrish at the Internet Movie Database
• Helen Parrish at Find a Grave

Jesse James
Jesse James c. 1882
Born	Jesse Woodson James (1847-09-05)September 5, 1847 Kearney, Missouri, U.S.
Died	April 3, 1882(1882-04-03) (aged 34) St. Joseph, Missouri, U.S. 39°45′28″N 94°50′39″W / 39.757813°N 94.844087°W / 39.757813; -94.844087 (Site of fatal shot killing Jesse James)
Nationality	American
Known for	Robbery
Spouse	Zerelda Mimms
Children	Jesse E. James, Mary James Barr
Parents	Robert S. James, Zerelda Cole James

Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. Some recent scholars place him in the context of regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the American Civil War rather than a manifestation of frontier lawlessness or alleged economic justice.^[1]

Jesse and his brother Frank James were Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. They were accused of participating in atrocities committed against Union soldiers. After the war, as members of one gang or another, they robbed banks, stagecoaches and trains. Despite popular portrayals of James as a kind of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there is no evidence that he and his gang used their robbery gains for anyone but themselves.^[2]

The James brothers were most active with their gang from about 1866 until 1876, when their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, resulted in the capture or deaths of several members. They continued in crime for several years, recruiting new members, but were under increasing pressure from law enforcement. On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford, who was a member of the gang living in the James house and who was hoping to collect a state reward on James' head.

Early life[link]

Jesse James Farm in Kearney.

Jesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Missouri, near the site of present day Kearney, on September 5, 1847. Jesse James had two full siblings: his older brother, Alexander Franklin "Frank", and a younger sister, Susan Lavenia James. Across a creek and up a hill from the house on the right was the home of Daniel Askew, where Askew was killed on April 12, 1875. Askew was suspected of cooperating with the Pinkertons in the January 1875 arson of the house (in a room on the left). James's original grave was on the property but he was later moved to a cemetery in Kearney. The original footstone is still outside, although the family has replaced the headstone.

His father, Robert S. James, was a commercial hemp farmer and Baptist minister in Kentucky, who migrated to Bradford, Missouri after marriage and helped found William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri.^[1] He was prosperous, acquiring six slaves and more than 100 acres (0.40 km²) of farmland. Robert James travelled to California during the Gold Rush to minister to those searching for gold^[3] and died there when Jesse was three years old.^[4]

After Robert James' death, his widow Zerelda remarried twice, first to Benjamin Simms and then in 1855 to Dr. Reuben Samuel, who moved into the James' home. Jesse's mother and Reuben Samuel had four children together: Sarah Louisa, John Thomas, Fannie Quantrell and Archie Peyton Samuel.^[3][5] Zerelda and Reuben Samuel acquired a total of seven slaves, who served mainly as farmhands in tobacco cultivation in Missouri.^[5][6]

Historical context[link]

The approach of the American Civil War overshadowed 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.^[3] Clay County was in a region of Missouri later dubbed "Little Dixie," as it was a center of migration from the Upper South. Farmers raised the same crops and livestock as in the areas they migrated from. They brought slaves with them and purchased more according to need. The county counted more slaveholders, who held more slaves, than other regions of the state. 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 American Civil War. In Missouri as a whole, slaves accounted for only 10 percent of the population, but in Clay County they constituted 25 percent.^[7]

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 came to dominate public life. Numerous people from Missouri migrated to Kansas to try to influence its future. Much of the tension that led up to the Civil War centered on the violence that erupted in Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery militias.^[6][8]

American Civil War[link]

Jesse James (unknown date)

The Civil War may have shaped Jesse James' life. After a series of campaigns and battles between conventional armies in 1861, guerrilla warfare gripped the state, waged between secessionist "bushwhackers" and Union forces which largely consisted of local militia organizations ("jayhawkers"). A bitter conflict ensued, bringing an escalating cycle of atrocities by both sides. Guerrillas murdered civilian Unionists, executed prisoners and scalped the dead. Union forces enforced martial law with raids on homes, arrests of civilians, summary executions, and banishment of Confederate sympathizers from the state.^[9]

The James-Samuel family took the Confederate side at the outset of the war. Frank James joined a local company recruited for the secessionist Drew Lobbs Army, and fought at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, though 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. They tortured Reuben Samuel by briefly hanging him from a tree. According to legend, they lashed young Jesse.^[3]

Quantrill's Raiders[link]

Frank eluded capture and was believed to have joined the guerrilla organization led by William C. Quantrill. It is thought that he took part in the notorious massacre of some 200 men and boys in Lawrence, Kansas, a center of abolitionists.^[10][11]

Frank James followed Quantrill to Texas over the winter of 1863–64. 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.^[3]

In the summer of 1864, Taylor was severely wounded, losing his right arm to a shotgun blast. The James brothers joined the bushwhacker group led by Bloody Bill Anderson. Jesse suffered a serious wound to the chest that summer. The Clay County provost marshal reported that both Frank and Jesse James took part in the Centralia Massacre in September, in which guerrillas killed or wounded some 22 unarmed Union troops; the guerrillas scalped and dismembered some of the dead. The guerrillas ambushed and defeated a pursuing regiment of Major A.V.E. Johnson's Union troops, killing all who tried to surrender (more than 100). Frank later identified Jesse as a member of the band who had fatally shot Major Johnson.^[12] As a result of the James brothers' activities, the Union military authorities made their family leave Clay County. Though ordered to move South beyond Union lines, instead they moved across the nearby state border into Nebraska.^[13]

After Anderson was killed in an ambush in October, the James brothers separated. Frank followed Quantrill into Kentucky; 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.^[12] Jesse was shot while trying to surrender when they ran into a Union cavalry patrol near Lexington, Missouri. Jesse James suffered the second of two life-threatening chest wounds.^[14][15]

After the Civil War[link]

Jesse and Frank James, 1872

Clay County Savings in Liberty

At the end of the Civil War, Missouri was in shambles. The conflict split the population into three bitterly opposed factions: anti-slavery Unionists, identified with the Republican Party; the segregationist conservative Unionists, identified with the Democratic Party; and pro-slavery, ex-Confederate secessionists, many of whom were also allied with the Democrats, especially the southern part of the party. The Republican Reconstruction administration 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.^[16][17]

Jesse recovered from his chest wound at his uncle's Missouri boardinghouse, where he was tended to by his first cousin, Zerelda "Zee" Mimms, named after Jesse's mother.^[12] Jesse and his cousin began a nine-year courtship, culminating in marriage. Meanwhile, his old commander Archie Clement kept his bushwhacker gang together and began to harass Republican authorities.

These men were the likely culprits in the first daylight armed bank robbery in the United States during peacetime,^[18] the robbery of the Clay County Savings Association in the town of Liberty, Missouri, on February 13, 1866. This bank was owned by Republican former militia officers who had recently conducted the first Republican Party rally in Clay County's history. One innocent bystander, a student of William Jewell College (which James's father had helped to found), was shot dead on the street during the gang's escape.^[19] It remains unclear whether Jesse and Frank took part.

After their later robberies took place and they became legends, there were those who credited them with being the leaders of the Clay County robbery.^[12] It has been argued in rebuttal that James was at the time still bedridden with his wound. No concrete evidence has surfaced to connect either brother to the crime, or to rule them out.^[20] On June 13, 1866 in Jackson County, Missouri two jailed members of Quantril's gang were demanded to be freed by a gang and the Jailor killed^[21] it is believed the James Brothers were involved.

This was a time of increasing local violence; Governor Fletcher had recently ordered a company of militia into Johnson County to suppress guerrilla activity.^[22] Archie Clement continued his career of crime and harassment of the Republican government, to the extent of occupying the town of Lexington, Missouri, on election day in 1866. Shortly afterward, the state militia shot Clement dead, an event James wrote about with bitterness a decade later.^[19][20]

The survivors of Clement's gang continued to conduct bank robberies over the next two years, though their numbers dwindled through arrests, gunfights and lynchings. While they later tried to justify robbing the banks, these were small, local banks with local capital, not part of the national system that was an object of popular discontent in the 1860s and 1870s.^[23] On May 23, 1867, for example, they robbed a bank in Richmond, Missouri, in which they killed the mayor and two others.^[12][24] It remains uncertain whether either of the James brothers took part, although an eyewitness who knew the brothers told a newspaper seven years later "positively and emphatically that he recognized Jesse and Frank James ... among the robbers."^[25] In 1868, Frank and Jesse James allegedly joined Cole Younger in robbing a bank at Russellville, Kentucky.

Jesse James did not become famous, however, until December 7, 1869, when he and (most likely) Frank robbed the Daviess County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri. The robbery netted little money, but it appears that Jesse shot and killed the cashier, Captain John Sheets, mistakenly believing him to be Samuel P. Cox, the militia officer who had killed "Bloody Bill" Anderson during the Civil War. James's self-proclaimed attempt at revenge, and the daring escape he and Frank made through the middle of a posse shortly afterward, put his name in the newspapers for the first time.^[26][27][28] An 1882 history of Daviess County said, "The history of Daviess County has no blacker crime in its pages than the murder of John W. Sheets."^[29]

The 1869 robbery marked the emergence of Jesse James as the most famous of the former guerrillas and the first time he was publicly labeled an "outlaw," as Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden set a reward for his capture.^[29] This was the beginning of an alliance between James and John Newman Edwards, editor and founder of the Kansas City Times. Edwards, a former Confederate cavalryman, was campaigning to return former secessionists to power in Missouri. Six months after the Gallatin robbery, Edwards published the first of many letters from Jesse James to the republic, asserting his innocence. Over time, the letters gradually became more political in tone, denouncing the Republicans and voicing James' pride in his Confederate loyalties. Together with Edwards's admiring editorials, the letters turned James into a symbol of Confederate defiance of Reconstruction. Jesse James's initiative in creating his rising public profile is debated by historians and biographers, though the tense politics certainly surrounded his outlaw career and enhanced his notoriety.^[28][30]

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 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.^[31] They robbed banks, stagecoaches and a fair in Kansas City, often in front of large crowds, even hamming it up for the bystanders.

On July 21, 1873, they turned to train robbery, derailing the Rock Island train in Adair, Iowa and stealing approximately $3,000 ($51,000 in 2007). For this, they wore Ku Klux Klan masks, deliberately taking on a potent symbol years after the Klan had been suppressed in the South by President Grant's use of the Force Acts. Former rebels attacked the railroads as symbols of threatening centralization.^[32]

The James' gang's later train robberies had a lighter touch. In only two train hold-ups did they rob passengers, because James typically limited himself to the express safe in the baggage car. Such techniques reinforced the Robin Hood image that Edwards created in his newspapers, but the James gang never shared any of the robbery money outside their circle.^[30]

Pinkertons[link]

The Adams Express Company turned to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1874 to stop the James-Younger gang. The Chicago-based agency worked primarily against urban professional criminals, as well as providing industrial security, such as strike breaking. Because the gang received support by many former Confederate soldiers in Missouri, they eluded the Pinkertons. Joseph Whicher, an agent dispatched to infiltrate Zerelda Samuel's farm, shortly afterwards was found killed. Two others, Captain Louis J. Lull and John Boyle, were sent after the Youngers; Lull was killed by two of the Youngers in a roadside gunfight on March 17, 1874. Before he died, Lull fatally shot John Younger. A deputy sheriff named Edwin Daniels also died in the skirmish.^[33][34]

Allan Pinkerton, the agency's founder and leader, took on the case as a personal vendetta. He began to work with former Unionists who lived near the James family farm. On the night of January 25, 1875, he staged a raid on the homestead. Detectives threw an incendiary device into the house; it exploded, killing James's young half-brother Archie (named for Archie Clement) and blowing off one of the arms of the James familiy's matriarch Zerelda Samuel. Afterward, Pinkerton denied that the raid's intent was arson, but biographer Ted Yeatman located a letter by Pinkerton in the Library of Congress in which Pinkerton declared his intention to "burn the house down."^[35][36]

The raid on the family home outraged many, and did more than all of Edwards's columns to create sympathy for Jesse James. The Missouri state legislature only narrowly defeated a bill that praised the James and Younger brothers and offered them amnesty. Allowed to vote and hold office again, former Confederates voted to limit reward offers that the governor could make for fugitives. This extended a measure of protection over the James-Younger gang. (Only Frank and Jesse James previously had been singled out for rewards larger than the new limit.)^[37][38]

Downfall of the gang[link]

Jesse and his cousin Zee married on April 24, 1874, and had two children who survived to adulthood: Jesse Edward James (b. 1875) and Mary Susan James (b. 1879). Twins Gould and Montgomery James (b. 1878) died in infancy. Jesse, Jr. became a lawyer in Kansas City, Missouri and Los Angeles, California.^[39]

On September 7, 1876, the James-Younger gang attempted a raid on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota. After this robbery and a manhunt, only Frank and Jesse James were left alive and uncaptured.^[40] Cole and Bob Younger later stated that they selected the bank because they believed it was associated with the Republican politician Adelbert Ames, the governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction, and Union general Benjamin Butler, Ames' father-in-law and the Union commander of occupied New Orleans. Ames was a stockholder in the bank, but Butler had no direct connection to it.^[41]

The gang attempted to rob the bank in Northfield about 2 p.m. on September 7, 1876 but the robbery was bungled because several gang members had been drinking that morning, something Jesse James would never have permitted had he been present in Northfield. This was a primary reason Jesse James was never indicted for the Northfield crimes. Jesse James was a highly disciplined Confederate terrorist in his day, but he never drank alcohol and never permitted his gang members to drink alcohol on the job because he had seen the disastrous results of drunken raids during and after the war. Northfield residents had seen the gang members leave a local restaurant near the mill shortly after noon, and they testified in Faribault at the Younger brothers' trial that they smelled of alcohol and that gang members were obviously under the influence when they greeted General Ames near the mill. To carry out the robbery, the gang divided into two groups. Three men entered the bank, two guarded the door outside, and three remained near a bridge across an adjacent square. The robbers inside the bank were thwarted when acting cashier Joseph Lee Heywood refused to open the safe, falsely claiming that it was secured by a time lock even as they held a bowie knife to his throat and cracked his skull with a pistol butt. Assistant cashier Alonzo Enos Bunker was wounded in the shoulder as he fled out the back door of the bank.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Northfield grew suspicious of the men guarding the door and raised the alarm. The five bandits outside fired in the air to clear the streets, which drove the townspeople to take cover and fire back from protected positions. Two bandits were shot dead and the rest were wounded in the barrage. Inside, the outlaws turned to flee. As they left, one shot the unarmed cashier Heywood in the head. Historians have speculated about the identity of the shooter but have not reached consensus on his identity.

The gang barely escaped Northfield, leaving two dead companions behind. They killed two innocent victims, Heywood, and Nicholas Gustafson, a Swedish immigrant from the Millersburg community west of Northfield. A massive manhunt ensued. It is believed that the gang burned 14 Rice County mills shortly after the robbery.^[42] The James brothers eventually split from the others and escaped to Missouri. The militia soon discovered the Youngers and one other bandit, Charlie Pitts. In a gunfight, Pitts died and the Youngers were taken prisoner. Except for Frank and Jesse James, the James-Younger Gang was destroyed.^[43][44]

Later in 1876, Jesse and Frank James surfaced in the Nashville, Tennessee area, where they went by the names of Thomas Howard and B. J. Woodson, respectively. Frank seemed to settle down, but Jesse remained restless. He recruited a new gang in 1879 and returned to crime, holding up a train at Glendale, Missouri (now part of Independence, Missouri),^[45] on October 8, 1879. The robbery was the first of a spree of crimes, including the holdup of the federal paymaster of a canal project in Killen, Alabama, and two more train robberies. But the new gang did not consist of battle-hardened guerrillas; they soon turned against each other or were captured, while James grew paranoid, killing one gang member and frightening away another.

By 1881, with authorities growing suspicious, the brothers returned to Missouri where they felt safer. In December, Jesse rented a house in Saint Joseph, Missouri, not far from where he had been born and raised. Frank, however, decided to move to safer territory, heading east to Virginia.^[46][47]

Death[link]

Site at 1318 Lafayette Street, where James was killed. To the right is the top of Patee House, where his wife Zerelda stayed after his death. His house was subsequently moved to the Belt Highway and later to its current location on the Patee House grounds.

Jesse James's home in St. Joseph, where he was shot (currently at the grounds of the Patee House)

With his gang nearly annihilated, James trusted only the Ford brothers, Charley and Robert.^[48] Although Charley had been out on raids with James, Bob was an eager new recruit. For protection, James asked the Ford brothers to move in with him and his family. James had often stayed with their sister Martha Bolton and, according to rumor, he was "smitten" with her.^[2] James did not know that Bob Ford had conducted secret negotiations with Thomas T. Crittenden, the Missouri governor, to bring in the famous outlaw.^[48] 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 sufficiently large reward, he had turned to the railroad and express corporations to put up a $5,000 bounty for each of them.^[2]

On April 3, 1882, after eating breakfast, the Fords and James prepared to depart for another robbery. They went in and out of the house to ready the horses. As it was an unusually hot day, James removed his coat, then removed his firearms, lest he look suspicious. Noticing a dusty picture on the wall, he stood on a chair to clean it. Bob Ford shot James in the back of the head.^[49][50][51] James' two previous bullet wounds and partially missing middle finger served to positively identify the body.^[12]

The murder of Jesse James became a national sensation. The Fords made no attempt to hide their role. Indeed, Robert Ford wired the governor to claim his reward. Crowds pressed into the little house in St. Joseph to see the dead bandit, even while the Ford brothers surrendered to the authorities but they were dismayed to find that they were 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 two hours later were granted a full pardon by Governor Crittenden.^[52]

The governor's quick pardon suggested that he knew the brothers intended to kill James rather than capture him. Like many who knew James, the Ford brothers never believed it was practical to try to take him into custody.^{[citation needed]} The implication that the chief executive of Missouri conspired to kill a private citizen startled the public and added to James' notoriety.^[53][54][55]

After receiving a small portion of the reward, the Fords fled Missouri. Law enforcement officials active in the plan also shared the bounty. Later the Ford brothers starred in a touring stage show in which they reenacted the shooting.^[56][57]

Suffering from tuberculosis (then incurable) and a morphine addiction, Charley Ford committed suicide on May 6, 1884, in Richmond, Missouri. Bob Ford operated a tent saloon in Creede, Colorado. On June 8, 1892, a man named Edward O'Kelley, went to Creede, loaded a double barrel shotgun, entered Ford's saloon and said "Hello, Bob" before shooting Bob Ford in the throat, killing him instantly. O'Kelley was sentenced to life in prison. O'Kelley's sentence was subsequently commuted because of a 7,000 signature petition in favor of his release. The governor pardoned him on October 3, 1902.^[58]

James' 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.^[48] James's widow Zee died alone and in poverty.

Rumors of survival[link]

Rumors of Jesse James's survival proliferated almost as soon as the newspapers announced his death. Some said that Robert Ford killed someone other than James, in an elaborate plot to allow him to escape justice. These tales have received little credence, then or later. None of James's biographers has accepted them as plausible. The body buried in Kearney, Missouri, as Jesse James's was exhumed in 1995 and subjected to mitochondrial DNA typing. The report, prepared by Anne C. Stone, Ph.D., James E. Starrs, L.L.M., and Mark Stoneking, Ph.D., stated the mtDNA recovered from the remains was consistent with the mtDNA of one of James's relatives in the female line.^[59] This theme resurfaced in a 2009 documentary, Jesse James' Hidden Treasure, which aired on the History Channel. The documentary was dismissed as pseudo-history and pseudo-science by historian Nancy Samuelson in a review she wrote for the Winter, 2009-2010 edition of The James-Younger Gang Journal.^[60]

One prominent claimant was J. Frank Dalton, who died August 15, 1951, in Granbury, Texas. Dalton was allegedly 101 years old at the time of his first public appearance, in May 1948. His story did not hold up to questioning from James' surviving relatives.^[61]

Legacy and controversies[link]

James's turn to crime after the end of the Reconstruction era helped cement his place in American life and memory as a simple but remarkably effective bandit. After 1873 he was covered by the national media as part of social banditry.^[62] During his lifetime, James was celebrated chiefly by former Confederates, to whom he appealed directly in his letters to the press. Displaced by Reconstruction, the antebellum political leadership mythologized the James Gang exploits. Frank Triplett wrote about James as a "progressive neo-aristocrat" with purity of race.^[63] Indeed, some historians credit James' myth as contributing to the rise of former Confederates to dominance in Missouri politics^{[citation needed]} (in the 1880s, for example, both U.S. Senators from the state, Confederate military commander Francis Cockrell and Confederate Congressman George Graham Vest, were identified with the Confederate cause).

In the 1880s, after James' death, the James Gang became the subject of dime novels that represented the bandits as pre-industrial models of resistance.^[63] During the Populist and Progressive eras, James became a symbol as America's Robin Hood, standing up against corporations in defense of the small farmer, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor while there is no evidence that his robberies enriched anyone other than his gang and himself.^[2]

In portrayals of the 1950s, James was pictured as a psychologically troubled individual rather than a social rebel. Some filmmakers portrayed the former outlaw as a revenger, replacing "social with exclusively personal motives."^[64]

Jesse James remains a controversial symbol, one who can always be interpreted in various ways, according to cultural tensions and needs. Although some of the neo-Confederate movement regard him as a hero^[53][65][66] renewed cultural battles over the place of the Civil War in American history have replaced the long-standing interpretation of James as a Western frontier hero. Some point to his absolute commitment to slavery and his vow after the Civil War to shoot any black in Missouri not fulfilling the role of a slave.

While his "heroic outlaw" image is still commonly portrayed in films, as well as in songs and folklore, recent historians place him as a self-aware vigilante and terrorist who used local tensions to create his own myth among the widespread insurgent guerrillas and vigilantes following the American Civil War.^[1]

Museums[link]

Museums and sites devoted to Jesse James:

• James Farm in Kearney, Missouri: In 1974 Clay County, Missouri, bought it. The county operates the site as a house museum and historic site.^[67]
• 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 now owned and operated by the Pony Express Historical Association.^[68]
• The Jesse James Bank Museum, on the square in Liberty, Missouri, is the site of the first daylight bank robbery in peacetime. The museum is managed by Clay County along with the James Farm Home and Museum outside of Kearney, Missouri. ^[69]
• 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.^[70]
• 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 in his father's birthplace in Asdee, County Kerry, Ireland, from where his father immigrated to the US in the 1840s as a young man.^[71] The parish priest, Canon William Ferris, says a solemn requiem mass for Jesse James every year on April 3.

Festivals[link]

The Defeat of Jesse James Days in Northfield, Minnesota, is among the largest outdoor celebrations in the state and is held annually in September during the weekend after Labor Day, though it is now documented and in dispute whether Jesse James was ever in Northfield because he was never indicted for his crimes. 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.^[72]

Jesse James' boyhood home in Kearney, Missouri, is 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.^[73]

During the annual Labor Day weekend Victorian Festival^[74] at the 1866 Col. William H. Fulkerson estate Hazel Dell in Jersey County, Illinois, Jesse James' history is told in stories and by reenactments of stagecoach holdups. Over the three-day event, thousands of spectators learn of the documented James Gang's stopping point 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 the Jesse James International Arts and Film Festival. The JJIAFF completed its second annual event in April 2008 and the third annual is planned for April 25, 2009. The festival has featured a bluegrass band from San Francisco and experimental bands from southern Kentucky as well as painters, sculptors, photographers and comic artists. Children's activities are a mainstay of the festival. A highlight for adults is the film festival held at the Logan County Public Library in Russellville. Past entrants have included films from Norway and northwestern Kentucky, modern silent film projects, nature studies, and fan films.

In addition, the annual Tobacco and Heritage Festival in Russellville features a reenactment of the James-Younger Gang's robbery of the Southern Bank. Today used as a residence, the historic structure on South Main Street has been preserved by the town and county.

The small town of Oak Grove, Louisiana, also hosts a town-wide annual Jesse James Trade Days, usually in the early to mid fall. This is a reference to a short time James supposedly spent near this area.

Cultural depictions[link]

A dime novel featuring Jesse James.

Literature[link]

The James brothers became a staple in dime novels of the era, peaking in the 1880s following Jesse's death. James has often been used as a fictional character in many Western novels, including some published while he was alive. For instance, in Willa Cather's My Antonia, the narrator reads a book entitled 'Life of Jesse James' - probably a dime novel.

In Charles Portis's 1968 novel, True Grit, the U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn describes fighting with Cole Younger and Frank James for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Long after his adventure with Mattie Ross, Cogburn ends his days in a traveling road show with the aged Cole Younger and Frank James.

During his travel to the "Wilde West," Oscar Wilde visited Jesse James' hometown in Missouri. Learning that James had been assassinated by his own gang member, "...an event that sent the town into mourning and scrambling to buy Jesse's artifacts," "romantic appeal of the social outcast" in his mind, Wilde wrote in one of his letters to home that: "Americans are certainly great hero-worshippers, and always take [their] heroes from the criminal classes."^[75]

Comics[link]

In 1969, artist Morris and writer René Goscinny (co-creator of Asterix) had Lucky Luke confronting Jesse James, his brother Frank, and Cole Younger. The adventure poked fun at the image of Jesse as a new Robin Hood. Although he passes himself off as such and does indeed steal from the rich (who are, logically, the only ones worth stealing from), he and his gang take turns being "poor," thus keeping the loot for themselves. Frank quotes from Shakespeare, and Younger is portrayed as a fun-loving joker, full of good humor. One critic has likened this version of the James brothers as "intellectuals bandits, who won't stop theorising their outlaw activities and hear themselves talk."^[76] In the end, the at-first-cowed people of a town fight back against the James gang and send them packing in tar and feathers.

Music[link]

In his adaptation of the traditional song "Jesse James," Woody Guthrie magnified James's hero status. "Jesse James" was later covered by the Anglo-Irish band The Pogues on their 1985 album Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, and by Bruce Springsteen on his 2006 tribute to Pete Seeger, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.

A somewhat different song titled "Jesse James," referring to Jesse's "wife to mourn for his life; three children, they were brave," and calling Robert Ford "the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard," was also the first track recorded by the "Stewart Years" version of the Kingston Trio at their initial recording session in 1961 (and included on that year's release Close-Up).

Echoing the Confederate hero aspect, Hank Williams, Jr.'s 1983 Southern anthem "Whole Lot Of Hank" has the lyrics "Frank and Jesse James knowed how to rob them trains, they always took it from the rich and gave it to the poor, they might have had a bad name but they sure had a heart of gold."

Rock band James Gang was named after Jesse James's gang. Their final album, released in 1976, was titled Jesse Come Home.

Warren Zevon's 1976 self-titled album Warren Zevon includes the song "Frank and Jesse James," a romantic tribute to the James Gang's exploits, expressing much sympathy with their "cause." Its lyrics encapsulate the many legends that grew up around the life and death of Jesse James. The album contains a second reference to Jesse James in the song "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" with the lyric "Well, I met a girl in West Hollywood, I ain't naming names. She really worked me over good, she was just like Jesse James." Linda Ronstadt covered the song a year later with slightly altered lyrics.

In her album Heart of Stone (1989), Cher included a song titled "Just Like Jesse James," written by Diane Warren. This single, which was released in 1990, achieved high positions in the charts and sold 1,500,000 copies worldwide.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's album Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy features the song "Jesse James," ostensibly recorded on a wire recorder.

Jon Chandler has also written a song about Jesse and Frank James entitled "He Was No Hero," written from the perspective of Joe Hayward's widow cursing Bob Ford for cheating her out of killing Jesse James.

Around 1980 a concept album titled The Legend of Jesse James was released. It was written by Paul Kennerley and starred Levon Helm (The Band) as Jesse James, Johnny Cash as Frank James, Emmylou Harris as Zee James, Charlie Daniels as Cole Younger, and Albert Lee as Jim Younger. There are also appearances by Rodney Crowell, Jody Payne, and Rosanne Cash. The album highlights Jesse's life from 1863 to his death in 1882. In 1999 a double CD was released containing The Legend Of Jesse James and White Mansions, another concept album by Kennerley about life in the Confederate States of America between 1861-1865.

Stage Productions[link]

• The musical melodrama "Jesse," written by Bob and Marion Moulton with lyrics by Prairie Home Companion writer/performer Vern Sutton and music by William Huckaby and Donna Paulsen,^[77] has since 1976 ^[78] (the centennial of the James-Younger gang's Northfield bank raid) traditionally been performed in Northfield, Minnesota during the town's annual The Defeat of Jesse James Days.^[79]

Films[link]

There have been numerous portrayals of Jesse James in film and television,^[80] including two wherein Jesse James, Jr. depicts his father. In many of the films, James is portrayed as a Robin Hood-like character.^[81]

• 1921: Jesse James Under the Black Flag, played by Jesse James, Jr.
• 1921: Jesse James as the Outlaw, played by Jesse James, Jr.
• 1927: Jesse James, played by Fred Thomson
• 1939: Jesse James, played by Tyrone Power with Henry Fonda as Frank James and John Carradine as Bob Ford
• 1939: Days of Jesse James, played by Don 'Red' Barry
• 1941: Jesse James at Bay, played by Roy Rogers
• 1947: Jesse James Rides Again, played by Clayton Moore
• 1949: I Shot Jesse James, played by Reed Hadley
• 1950: Kansas Raiders, played by Audie Murphy
• 1951: The Great Missouri Raid, played by Macdonald Carey
• 1954: Jesse James Women played by Don 'Red' Barry
• 1957: The True Story of Jesse James, played by Robert Wagner
• 1959: Alias Jesse James, played by Wendell Corey in a comedy starring Bob Hope
• 1960: Young Jesse James, played by Ray Stricklyn
• 1965: The Legend of Jesse James, TV series starred by Allen Case
• 1966: Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, played by John Lupton
• 1969: A Time for Dying, played by Audie Murphy
• 1972: The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, played by Robert Duvall
• 1980: The Long Riders, played by James Keach
• 1986: The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James, played by Kris Kristofferson with Johnny Cash as Frank James and Willie Nelson as Gen. Jo Shelby
• 1994: Frank and Jesse, played by Rob Lowe
• 1999: Purgatory, played by J.D. Souther
• 2001: American Outlaws, played by Colin Farrell
• 2005: Just like Jesse James is the title of a movie that appears in Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking, in which Sam Shepard plays an aging western movie star whose first success was with that movie.
• 2005: Jesse James: Legend, Outlaw, Terrorist (Discovery HD), played by Daniel Lennox
• 2007: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, played by Brad Pitt, with Casey Affleck as Bob Ford^[81]

Television[link]

• The actor Lee Van Cleef played Jesse James in a 1954 episode of Jim Davis's syndicated television series, Stories of the Century, the first western series to win an Emmy Award.
• The ABC series The Legend of Jesse James aired during the 1965-1966 television season, with Christopher Jones as Jesse, Allen Case as Frank James, Ann Doran as Zerelda Cole James Samuel, Robert J. Wilke as Marshal Sam Corbett, and John Milford as Cole Younger.
• In the episode of Little House on the Prairie titled "The Aftermath" (aired November 7, 1977), Jesse (Dennis Rucker) and Frank James (John Bennett Perry) took refuge in Walnut Grove after a failed robbery attempt.
• In the American Western series The Young Riders (1989–1992), Jesse James is portrayed by the late actor Christopher Pettiet. He appeared in 17 episodes.
• An episode of Deadliest Warrior on "Spike TV" features the Jesse James gang vs. the Al Capone gang. The main weapons used by Jesse James was the Colt .45, the Pistol Whip, the Winchester rifle, and the Bowie Knife. The Jesse James gang came out victorious in the simulated match.
• In Episode 33 of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction in a segment titled "Mysterious Strangers," a story is told about two men in 1870 who take refuge on a rainy night in an old widow's house. While there they find out that she is about to lose her home to foreclosure. The strangers disappear in the night, leaving her $900 to give to the banker, only to rob the banker of their own money after he retrieved it from the woman the next morning. The strangers, at the end of the story, turn out to be Frank and Jesse James. Beyond Belief purports that the story is documented and true.

References[link]

69. B. Wayne Quist: "The History of the Christdala Evangelical Swedish Lutheran Church of Millersburg, Minnesota," Dundas, Minnesota, Third Edition, July 2009, page 19-23, "The Murder of Nicholaus Gustafson;" www.christdala.com

Bibliography[link]

• Fellman, Michael. Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri onto the American Civil War. Oxford University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-19-506471-2.
• Settle, William A. Jesse James Was His Name, or, Fact and Fiction Concerning the Careers of the Notorious James Brothers of Missouri. University of Nebraska Press, 1977. ISBN 0-8032-5860-7.
• Stiles, T. J. Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. Knopf Publishing, 2002. ISBN 0-375-40583-6.
• Yeatman, Ted P. Frank and Jesse James: The Story Behind the Legend. Cumberland House Publishing, 2000. ISBN 1-58182-325-8.
• Quist, B. Wayne, "The History of the Christdala Evangelical Swedish Lutheran Church of Millersburg, Minnesota," Dundas, Minnesota, Third Edition, July 2009, page 19-23, "The Murder of Nicholaus Gustafson;" www.christdala.com

Further reading[link]

• Dyer, Robert. "Jesse James and the Civil War in Missouri,"University of Missouri Press, 1994
• Hobsbawm, Eric J. Bandits, Pantheon, 1981
• Koblas, John J. Faithful Unto Death, Northfield Historical Society Press, 2001
• Thelen, David. Paths of Resistance: Tradition and Dignity in Industrializing Missouri, Oxford University Press, 1986
• Wellman, Paul I. A Dynasty of Western Outlaws. Doubleday, 1961; 1986.
• White, Richard. "Outlaw Gangs of the Middle Border: American Social Bandits," Western Historical Quarterly 12, no. 4 (October 1981)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jesse James

• Primary sources and essays by Jesse James biographer T. J. Stiles
• Official website for the Family of Jesse James
• Death pics Jesse James
• Jesse James at the Open Directory Project
• Death of Jesse James with pictures from the National Archives and Library of Congress
• A 1901 newspaper interview with the Younger brothers