james farm journalr.b5z.net/i/u/10126339/f/newsletters/fojf_spring_2016.pdf · 2020. 9. 11. ·...

Even today, visitors gawk at the 18-foot chasm in the quartzite bedrock of the little community park just north of Garretson in

southeastern South Dakota. Most of them walk away saying, “Aw, he’d a’ nev-er made it.”

Well, the odds wouldn’t have been in his favor, that’s for sure. Especially be-

cause Jesse James was riding a stolen farm horse when he sup-posedly jumped that gap in the autumn of 1876. He and his older brother Frank, you see, were trying to outrun a highly-incensed Minnesota

posse after their bungled attempt to rob the First National Bank in Northfield, Minn., a weeks earlier. It was the single biggest failure in their long and otherwise successful careers as post Civil War out-laws.

The Devil’s Gulch jump, as it’s called in eastern South Dakota, was quite a feat, if it really happened, and as locals tend to do, many in the Garretson area swear that it did. But 18-feet is a long jump any way you look at it, and the penalty for coming up short would have been a 70 foot fall – certain death for both horse and rider. So, let’s play the odds and say that no such leap was ever attempted. That doesn’t mean, however, that Jesse and Frank weren’t in the neighborhood that night. Lots of good, God-fearing homesteaders in the area thought they

were, even 50 years later, and the recol-lections of a few of them were published in a series of articles that appeared in the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader newspaper in 1924.

Before giving you a sampling, let’s review what might have put Jesse, Frank, the Younger Brothers and several other des-peradoes in the area at about that time.

Northfield was, for sure, a departure from their usual method of doing busi-ness. They’d robbed plenty of banks in Missouri, a few in Iowa, ditto for Ken-tucky and who knows where else … But Minnesota? That was deep into hostile territory for a bunch of Civil War Con-federate guerrillas. And despite one of the gang’s assurances that the bank was

just stuffed with cash and would be a cre-ampuff to rob, for a savvy pair like Jesse and Frank James it must have looked like a stretch.

What made the First National Bank so ir-resistible? Some authors who have stud-ied the robbery in minute detail claim it was politics. They say the James Boys, especially Jesse, just couldn’t let the war die, and when he had a chance to stick his finger (or his revolver) into the eye of an ex-Federal he took it.

An investor in The First National Bank was, you see, a man named Adelburt Ames, who was the son-in-law of Civil War Union General Benjamin But-ler, and that Butler, in turn, also had a large investment in the bank. It’s pos-sible they had no idea of that con-nection, but if they did, it might have

JAMES FARM JOURNAL

Published by the Friends of the James FarmVOLUME 27, ISSUE 1 SPRING 2016

IN THIS ISSUE

President’s Message . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

April 2016 Revolver Shoot . . . . . . 2

You've Got a Friend in Me . . . . . . 3

Old West Revolver Shoots . . . . . . . 4

John Newman Edwards . . . . . . . . 5

FOJF Journey Grant . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Where Can You Donate? . . . . . . 11

Reunion 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

The Farm's New Exhibit . . . . . . . 12

Have You Renewed? . . . . . . . . . . 15

Renew Your Membership . . . . . . 16

Frank and Jesse: Retreating from Northfield was an adventure

Continued on page 6

Devil’s Gulch, the 18-foot-long, 70 foot high jump that Jesse allegedly took during the escape from the botched Northfield, Minn. raid.

2 Friends of the James Farm • www.jessejames.org

JAMES FARM JOURNAL • VOLUME 27, ISSUE 1 SPRING 2016

If you are reading this, let me Thank You for your time. It seems the more digital our society becomes, the less time we have. There are all sorts

of ways to occupy our time but it seems there is no time to use them. So if you are reading this, you had to spend some of your time to do so and I sincerely hope you enjoy the newsletter.

With no FOJF activities right now, this seemed a good time to have our writers produce some lengthy articles – and all three came through for us. I do hope you enjoy the articles as a lot of research, ef-fort and thought goes into the writing of them.

In case you didn’t know our regular writ-ers, here’s a little bio on them.

Martin “Marty” McGrane has been with the Friends of the James Farm for well over 30 years, thus brings many years of experience and historical research to the table. He is also the author of one of the best and most informative books on the James family, “The James Farm: Its People, Their Lives and Their Times.”

Michelle Pollard is presently one of the most informed authorities on Frank and Jesse James. She is known for her im-peccable research and fact-finding trips to every place the James brothers have been. Plus, she hails from England! She is the author of “Legends Born Where Men Die,” a novel of Jesse James and “Witnesses to the Passing of a Legend, The Death and Burial of Jesse James.” Michelle is also an active member of the English Westerners’ Society, an educa-tional, non-profit organization, whose object is to pursue and promote the study of American frontier history.

Liz Johnson has been with the Friends of the James Farm since 2013 and pub-lished numerous articles on the history of the James boys for the Excelsior Springs Standard newspaper in Missouri, and pres-ently works as the historical writer for the Richmond News, Richmond, Mo. Several of her James articles have won Missouri Press Association Awards. She also has written for and designed the Friends of

the James Farm Jour-nal since 2013.

Whether you are reading the news-letter because you are interested in the James boys or per-haps you are just in-terested in the history of their period. It takes time and effort

and we appreciate it. It also takes time and effort to produce the newsletter and we “Thank You” for checking it out.

We as board members of Friends of the James Farm also want to Thank You for your membership. If you haven’t already renewed your membership (due Jan. 1) or would like to join, check out the details on the back page of this newsletter or our website, www.jessejames.org. With-out your annual dues and the Old West Revolver Shoots we could not go on sup-porting the James Farm in this fashion.

Please look for details of upcoming shoots and our bi-annual reunion in this newsletter.

Thanks for reading and again, thanks for your time.

Monte Griffey

[email protected]

FRIENDS OFTHE JAMES FARM

Executive OfficersPresident (Term Expires 2016)

Monte GriffeyVice-President (Term Expires 2017)

Kevin MakelSecretary (Term Expires 2017)

Linda TarantinoTreasurer (Term Expires 2017)

Bryan Ivlow

Board MembersClass of 2016

Pam BannerScott Cole

To Be Determined

Class of 2017Martin McGrane

Paul Weller

To Be Determined

Class of 2018Liz Johnson

Kimberly HowardTo Be Determined

Ex-OfficioBeth Beckett

Christie Kennard, Vivie Tison

& Liz Johnson

Honorary MembersBetty BarrJanet Perry

Michelle PollardDavid Smith

Newsletter EditorsLinda Tarantino, Liaison

Contributors: Michelle Pollard, Liz Johnson & Martin McGrane

Contact editors at:

www.jessejames.org |Newsletter Design/Layout

Liz Johnson ~ Jolly Hill

A special Thank You to our “Friends”

OLD WEST REVOLVER SHOOTSATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2016

Registration 8 a.m., Shoot 9 a.m.James Farm, 21216 Jesse James Farm Road, Kearney816.736.8500 • www.jessejames.org for info/rules

Friends of the James Farm • www.jessejames.org 3


Levi (Lee) Boone McMurtry was born in 1841. His father moved to Missouri in 1827, settled in Callaway county, married Seral-

da Hays on 10 October 1832, and died in 1843.1 His wife, a descendent of Daniel Boone, was left with five young mouths to feed and therefore it is perhaps no sur-prise that she remarried quickly. Barba Collins became her second husband on 19 November 1844. 2

Barba Collins had also been married be-fore. On 27 August, 1818, he married his first wife, Martha Johns in Kentucky and together they had six children; Morgan and Glover were both born in

Kentucky, while Todd, Robert, Ann and Mary were all born after the family moved to Missouri. Barba and Martha were founder members of the Liberty Christian Church near Shamrock, Cal-laway County and Martha is most likely buried in the nearby Collins cemetery there. Barba’s second wife, Polly Read, was the widow of William Read and sis-ter to Barba’s brother James’ wife. Lucy was their only child. Unsurprisingly, the Barba Collins household noted in the 1850 census was substantial. Lee found himself part of a family that included his mother, step-father, four full-siblings, two half-siblings and seven step-siblings.

Whether or not it was a happy arrange-ment is impossible to ascertain but what does appear certain is that Seralda’s death, around 1853, prompted the Mc-Murtry children to leave the Collins household. The youngest brothers, Sam-uel and James, were placed under the guardianship of William H. Morris, hus-band of their older sister, Nancy, while 24-year-old Joseph took lodgings with Hays Wallen, and 19-year-old Lee went to live with an uncle, Amazon Hays. This

left Barba at home with Mary Douglass, youngest daughter from his first mar-riage, her husband and their 1-year-old child, Martha, Lucy D., his 17-year-old daughter from his second marriage, and Amazon and Martha, son and daughter from his third marriage.

Barba died at Amazon’s home near Shamrock on 3 July, 1879, aged 86.3

When the Civil War broke out, Lee wasted no time in joining the fight for the Confederacy and did so in such a way that he was soon regarded as fearless. “For presence of mind and coolness facing imminent danger of death McMurtry’s quick action and successful ruse to evade detection and being killed was seldom, if ever, equaled during those per-ilous days,” fellow guerrilla Hamp Watts, remembered. He went on to give the fol-lowing escapade as an example of his as-sertions; at the home of Captain Sebree, a group of six guerrillas, McMurtry in-cluded, found the building surrounded by Federal soldiers after they let down their guard to entertain a Miss Saunders who was then living at the house. Seeing their dilemma, McMurtry armed the young woman, disguised himself sufficiently to pass off as her brother and then “with no visible signs of fear or tremor, calmly faced a squad of the enemy as they made excited inrush to the house.” Having successfully fooled the soldiers, McMurtry gathered his guns and left, escaping punishment rather bet-ter than Miss Saunders, who was ban-ished after the Federal authorities heard of her part in McMurtry’s escape.4

Further examples of his narrow escapes are not difficult to find.

150 YEARS AGO: Major Draper leads squad on small

guerrilla camp

By Rudi Keller

Sunday, May 6, 2012

WILLIAMSBURG — Maj. Daniel Draper led a squad of 30 men in an attack on a small guerrilla camp, killing one bushwhacker and wounding two others.

Area farmer William Layson found the camp as he searched for a stolen horse. Informed by Lay-

son, Draper and his men rode in darkness from Danville to the headwaters of Whetstone Creek, where they found six men in camp, reported a let-ter to the St. Louis Missouri Democrat newspa-per.

No official report of the action is available. Ac-counts in the Fulton Missouri Telegraph differ in some detail from that of the letter to the Demo-crat.

The Telegraph reported that the men in the camp were Isaac Burt, Richard Berry, Theodore French, Samuel McMurtry, Coon McMurtry and Butler Armstrong, “who were hiding from the federal troops.”

The fight was brief. Draper left half his men to hold horses and split the remainder into two squads. Lt. John D. McFarlane led one group and Draper the other as they approached the camp. McFarlane’s men were fired upon and the militia charged.

Both accounts name Burt, son of John A. Burt, as the dead man, although the letter calls him Brice Burt.

The letter said two men, Berry and a Lee Mc-Murtry were mortally wounded, and one was captured. The Telegraph reported that Berry and French were slightly wounded, and the McMur-trys and Armstrong got away.

The militia captured five horses and other mate-rial. Everything that could not be carried away was burned.

Draper “intends to put a stop to bushwhacking and jayhawking in the vicinity, and the sooner the rebels understand and act upon it the better it will be for them,” the letter concluded. “If they will insist upon a course they may depend on being killed, for he has the boys that are ready for the work, and he is the man to find it if there is any to be done in this country.” Columbiatribune.com

Lee McMurtry came to know the James brothers well during the Civil War. A member of Todd’s company, he was one of the men who, along with Frank James, held the enemy back while their comrades crossed the Kentucky river at Worthville, Carroll County. He stayed a few days at the James Farm in February 1865, long enough to allow both horse

YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND IN ME

Jesse James and Lee McMurtry

Continued on page 4



J E S S E J A M E S O L D W E S TR E V O L V E R S H O O T

April 9, 2016

$25

Entry fee

“This ain’t no TEA DANCE! It’s a SHOOT!” Period style clothing is encouraged!

Sponsored by Clay County Parks, Recreation & Historic Sites & The Friends of the James Farm • www.jessejames.org

Categories include: Cap & Ball Revolver • Cartridge Revolver Prizes awarded for 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place • Fixed Sights, Dueling Stance Only

RegistRation 8 a.m. • shoot 9 a.m. James Farm, 21216 Jesse James Farm Road, Kearney, MO • 816.736.8500

ANNA JAMES CATEGORIES!

Cap & Ball Revolver • Cartridge Revolver Prizes awarded for 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place

• Fixed Sights, Dueling StanceLadies ... we welcome you to come in period costume!

AND FOR THE LADIES ...

Save the Date: Additional 2016 Shoots: June 11 & Sept. 24

Remembering Jesse James, assassinated 134 years ago

YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND Cont. from page 3

and rider rest and recuperation; he was with Quantrill when the latter was mor-tally wounded at the Wakefield Farm; and he surrendered with Frank James at Samuel’s Depot, Nelson County, Ky. He saw action at Lawrence, at Centralia, and his life may very well have been saved by Jesse James at the battle of Fayette.

The attack on Fayette was always going to be a disaster and divided the guerril-la leaders, who were seen arguing even before the ill-fated attack had begun. Hamp Watts, one of the men who took part in the raid and a native of the town, remembered the day with a fair degree of bitterness. “Six guerrillas killed, eight or ten wounded,” he recalled, “the result of Bill Anderson’s reckless foolhardiness. Leading men, armed only with revolvers, charging an invisible enemy in block-houses, to simply embed bullets in logs, with no possible chance to either kill or inflict injury on the foe, was both stupid and reck-less. The defeat of the guerrillas therefore,” he concluded, “was signal and humiliating.”5

Whether or not ‘Sergeant McMurtry’ fell first during that desperate fight, as noted by John Newman Edwards in Noted Guer-rillas or the Warfare of the Border, is impos-sible to determine, but Edwards’ asser-tion that “Richard Kinney and Jesse James volunteered to bring McMurtry out from under the guns of the enemy, and they dashed in afoot and succeeded safely amid a shower of balls,” although generally accepted to be true, may require further investigation.6 In his chapter, Assault on Fayette, Hamp Watts commented that although Edwards’ “de-scription of this battle is painted in the liveliest colors, unfortunately there is only here and there a grain of truth as given and described.” Watts laid out the particulars of the battle in their barest form, correcting the number of wounded and how close the guerril-las came to landmarks within the town. He recalled the wounding of McMurtry, among others, during the second assault, not the first, and that several men were saved by comrades who went to their res-cue and pulled them from the fray. He did not mention Jesse by name as having rescued McMurtry, but then neither did he offer another.7

“Among the wounded was Jim Little,” wrote

Albert Castel in his book, William Clarke Quantrill. “One of his fingers had been shot off, he had been hit in the hip, and he was covered with blood. On seeing him, Quantrill, who had not taken part in the attack, cried, ‘Boys, I will take Jimmie to cover – he is all shot to hell.’ He then rode off with Little into the brush.” 8

As the fight continued, John McCorkle noticed that a bullet had “struck Lee Mc-Murtry under the left eye, giving him a severe flesh wound, blinding him for the time being and he fell from his horse. I caught his horse,” the guerrilla remembered, “led it back to him and, assisting him to mount, I led his horse down a side street to a pasture … The remainder of our command went on up the street leading to-ward the town of Glasgow where the Federals

had log fortifications. When I reached the pasture I there found Colonel Quantrill with Jim Little, who had received a ball in the right arm. I left McMurtry with Quantrill and started up north for the town where I could hear a great deal of firing.”9 From this, it appears that McMur-try was rescued by John McCorkle, not Jesse James, and although Castel makes no mention of Quantrill retreating with both Little and McMurtry neither does he note the source of the quote. It may be that McMurtry, belonging as he did to another group, was not taken by Quant-rill and therefore needed rescuing a sec-ond time by Kinney and James, or it may be that, in true Edwards fashion, the

Continued on page 7



JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS

Continued on page 13

A man who loved prose, flowers and the rush of wartime battle

It was suggested to me to write some-thing on John Newman Edwards, but as always, with the full life he led, it’s impossible to cover most of

Edwards’ life here in one article. Thus, I chose to see if I could breathe life into the man who was so vocally supportive of Frank and Jesse James and we could learn a little more about what made Edwards tick. ~ Liz Johnson

He’s been described as someone who loved solitude, yet loved an adrenalin rush. He was shy and timid, yet charged into battle and creat-ed a niche in the news business that earned him enough notori-ety that he is well-re-

membered 127 years after his death.

Who was this man of many contradic-tions? He was John Newman Edwards, soldier, writer, author, newspaperman and friend and advocate of Frank and Jesse James.

Edwards was born Jan. 4, 1839, in War-ren County, Va., about 85 miles from present-day Alexandria and near to the bucolic town of Front Royal, nestled in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. He was the second child of Mary Edwards Newman. John’s father’s name is listed as Samuel on ancestry.com, however that shows an inaccuracy as it lists Samuel’s date of death as 1863, yet in the 1850 census, John is listed as age 12 and living with his mother, Mary, and her mother, Catharine Edwards, 64, as well as an older brother and two younger siblings. Likely, John’s father was deceased by 1850. In tracing Edwards’ family his-tory on ancestry.com via Edwards’ uncle Thomas Yerby (see below), it is likely that his father was Thomas Jefferson Ed-wards, II, born 1804 – his date of death unknown.

At a young age Edwards wanted to learn the newspaper business. He learned type-

setting in Front Royal.

“He was highly regarded as a 'boy of extraor-dinary powers at the immature age of fourteen years,'” said Rev. George Plattenburg, of Dover, Mo.1

It was unknown why Edwards moved to Lexington, Mo., at the tender age of 16, except that he had a relative, Thomas J. Yerby, a fairly well off farmer, who was living there at the time.

Yerby’s late wife was the sister of John Edwards’ father.

At the time Edwards moved to Lexing-ton, a newspaper, The Expositor was in operation. Edwards immediately began working there as a printer, continuing to cultivate the interest he had in the pub-lishing business.

His life in Lexington was rather unevent-ful, yet the storm that would later become the War Between the States was already brewing in the Border Wars between Kansas and Missouri. These days were rife with tension, strong opinions and the war that was to come was kindling be-neath the surface of the country.

Newman’s childhood belied his propen-sity for writing prose. “As a boy he loved solitude – this peculiarity in manhood made him shy to the verge of girlish timidity. He loved the

fields, sweet with ‘the breath of kind’ and the new-mown hay. He lingered in the dim vistas of the woods and from out their slumberous shad-ows, dreamily watched the ceaseless swirl of the great river.”2

This description of Edwards makes it difficult to believe this gentle, shy youth would emerge as a fierce soldier, defend-ing the Confederate cause, riding with General Jo Shelby in the years to come. He was, in fact, a complex man.

In 1862, Shelby organized a regiment near Waverly. His unit, upon hearing of the Battle of Lone Jack, began moving his way south … a very dangerous move. “Environed by almost indescribable difficulties and never at any time, were the experiences and dangers of this illustrious body of men greater or graver.”3

At McKissock Springs, Ark., Shelby “was given the arduous and dangerous duty of watch-ing and contesting, step by step, the Federal ad-vance from Fayetteville, Ark.” 4

Only a soldier can understand the atroci-ties of war, the hardship endured by both sides. “A sort of superhuman endurance in the form of military service, of such varied fortune of defeat and victory.” 5



been quite an incentive – Butler was widely hated in the war. He was known as “Beast Butler” for his treatment of Yankee-occupied areas of the south.

Regardless of their motivation, choosing Northfield’s bank proved to be a very bad idea. From the get-go, everything went wrong. The gang’s efforts to “hurrah” the town with gunfire and keep street traffic at bay failed to faze the good peo-ple of Northfield, and it wasn’t long be-fore they’d rounded up weapons of their own and began shooting back. Inside the bank, cashier Joseph Heywood was gunned-down when he refused to open the vault. Outside, things were no less chaotic. Within not much more than a beat, outlaws Bill Stiles and Clell Miller were dead. All three Younger brothers, Cole, Bob and Jim, were seriously shot-up, as was fellow Missourian Charlie Pitts. Frank James seems to have taken a bullet to the knee; Jesse may or may not have been wounded, too – reports vary.

Thoroughly discombobulated, the gang wasn’t particular about which direction it chose to leave town. Southwestward, however, was the route they took. And although Northfield authorities mounted their own posses, and appeals went out to neighboring communities to do the same, there were nothing more than scattered, unsubstantiated reports of the outlaws’ whereabouts until some two weeks had passed. A farm boy near Madelia, per-haps 50 miles southwest of Northfield, told authorities that he’d seen five men, on foot and on horseback, heading west-ward through wet, boggy country near a spot known locally as Hanska’s Slough. A gunfight soon raged, and bandit Char-lie Pitts (an alias) was killed. The Young-er brothers had absorbed still more lead when Cole hollered-out that they’d had enough. They expected to be lynched. Instead they soon began long stretches in Minnesota’s Stillwater Prison, where Bob eventually died. Only Cole would ever see Missouri again, and then it would be as an old man.

But what of Jesse and Frank, assuming that they too had been in the neighbor-hood? Why hadn’t the posse captured

them?

Remember, the Youngers were the only witnesses, and they never once said that the James brothers were even involved in the affair, but assuming they were, where did they go? And how? Enter those old 1924 interviews in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

It had long been suspected that the broth-ers James had been seen in southwest Minnesota and southeast Dakota Ter-ritory shortly after the Northfield raid. Accordingly, the newspaper sought to put some meat on those old bones.

The first mention of anything concrete is reported to have occurred on the af-ternoon of Sept. 15. It was 8 days af-

ter the robbery. Two well-dressed riders, wearing goatskin gloves, no less, but obvi-ously trail-weary, stopped a man leading a pair of horses in eastern Rock County, Minn., about a hundred miles southwest of where they’d parted ways with the Youngers. In talking to the man, they suggested in a non-confrontational way that he take their mounts as trade, plus cash, for his pair. He agreed, and the rid-ers, afterwards assumed to have been the James brothers, again headed southwest, but it must have been a humbling expe-rience. As Confederate guerrillas they’d ridden (and stolen) only the finest horses Missouri had to offer. Now, thanks to

NORTHFIELD RETREAT Cont. from page 1

Dakota Territory, St. Paul, Minn.: St. Paul Lithog. & Eng. Co., 1872. The area Frank and Jesse were in, is approximately in the lower right shaded area. (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

Continued on page 8



story, though essentially true, was adapt-ed to give Jesse James a more heroic part. Whatever the case, Jesse and Lee shared a common and memorable experience in the battle of Fayette and both, no mat-ter how it was achieved, were lucky to get away alive.

On 8 January 1867, Lee married Cath-erine (Kate) Burns in Jackson County, Mo. They had three daughters, Grizelle, Cossette and Avon, in the ensuing years and it might have looked as though Lee’s connection with the Jameses had ended with the War.10 This obituary, however, suggests a different story.

Lee McMurtry in Last Sleep Fought With Quantrell and

Jesse James Dies Here

Fort Worth Telegram:

Lee B. McMurtry, 66 years old, died Sunday in Ft. Worth and with his passing one of the most remarkable characters of the early days of the southwest goes to its final reward. McMurtry was a personal friend and long time associate of Jesse James in the days of his career in Missouri. He has told many listeners how he was with Bill Quantrell [sic] when he was shot toward the close of the Civil War and last fall at Wichita Falls met Cole Younger for the first time in 36 years. McMurtry was present at the famous massacre at Lawrence, Kansas when the entire city was shot up and burned. Once with a few comrades when surrounded by Colorado troops he cut his way through the military cordon and in his flight that day had three horses shot from under him. When the James boys were broken up he fled to Mexico and later returned to New Mexico. Here he freighted for years, but later returned and stood trial, coming clear of all charges made against him.

MADE A FINE SHERIFF

Next he appears as peace officer and was made sheriff of Wichita County. At Wichita Falls he made the best sheriff thereabouts had ever known. He was absolutely fearless and enforced the law to the letter. It is told of him that when a member of the Quantrell guerilla band during the Civil War he once saved the life of the now Senator Stephen B. Elkins, who was a school boy friend of his. McMurtry who cast his lot with the Quantrell band, often told how he came to join that organization. The company he always

explained was raised of fearless and daring men on the frontier who were accustomed to ride and shoot and was intended as a light horse attach-ment of the Confederate army. Their recklessness led them into trouble with the leaders of the Con-federacy and before they were aware of it they were declared outlaws and the hands of both the Federal and the Confederate governments were against them. “I fought under the black flag for two years”, said McMurtry to a Telegram re-porter last fall at Wichita Falls, “And I tell you it’s a mighty dangerous business.”

$10,000 REWARD OFFERED FOR HIM

At one time the United States government placed a reward of $10,000 upon McMurtry’s head. That was in the days directly following the Civil War and when the James gang was raid-ing through Missouri and Kansas. His home was in Clay County, Missouri. Last fall when Cole Younger started out with his show company the meeting of the two men at Wichita Falls was touching. Younger had only a short time be-fore been [sic] released from a long term in the penitentiary as a result of his many expeditions in the early days of bandit operations. The two men recognized each other after a separation of thirty six years and Younger was taken to Mc-Murtry’s home, where they spent hours in telling their reminiscences of the days when the only law was the law of the gun. The death of McMurtry came very suddenly Sunday. He was visiting at the home of his daughter in this city at 1514 Lawrence avenue when he was suddenly stricken and died.11

An old guerrilla friend of the Jameses and Youngers, accused of being involved in the early James-Younger Gang rob-beries and remembered in an obituary that revolves around his guerrilla days. It perhaps comes as no surprise that Lee B. McMurtry has one more part to play in the James story.

On 3 June, 1871, four men rode into Corydon, Iowa, with every intention of robbing their bank. The population was conveniently distracted by a local meet-ing intent on encouraging the people of Corydon to agree to pay the taxes needed towards the cost of building a new line of the M. I. and N. railroad through Coryd-on, the Wayne County seat. Several thou-sand dollars had already been raised but more was needed and the town bustled with those intent on listening to the ben-

efits that could be had by inviting the rail-road through the town. “Henry Clay Dean … came to Corydon in the summer of 1871 to make a railroad speech,” Corydon resident E. A. Rea remembered, “Mr. Dean had a good reputation as an orator, and also as a man that hated soap and water and was generally spoken of in the newspapers of that day as the great unwashed. The railroad meeting was held in the old frame Methodist Church that stood back about thirty feet from the street.” Mr. Rea recalled that the church was full and that some folk were forced to stand outside at all the windows to listen. “Nearly all the business houses were closed and the merchants had gone to the meeting,” he said. 12

As the four masked men entered the Wayne County Treasurer’s Office they may very well have known that the mon-ey already raised for the new railroad was safely held inside but when they asked for a hundred dollar bill to be changed, the junior clerk informed the leader that the safe was locked and that the treasur-er, like so many others in the town, had gone to the railroad meeting. Seeing the men’s disappointment, the clerk helpfully explained that the banking concern of the Ocobock Brothers, one block west of the Treasurer’s Office, remained open for business and, no doubt grateful, the rob-bers went there next.

Only Ted Wock, the cashier, was inside the bank. The owners had no interest in the railroad meeting and had made no financial contribution to its cause. Wock later described the gun he found pointing at him as a large Colt with an 8-to 10-inch barrel, held by a man he described as sunburned, thick-set, well-built but not very tall. The second man in the bank was described as about the same height as the first, but not so heavily built, with a thinner face. The robbers had no trouble walking away with around $6,000.13

Exiting the bank, the leader couldn’t help but ride over to the meeting and, with gun drawn, addressed the men lis-tening to Dean’s speech from outside the church – “Well, you’ve been having your fun and we’ve been having ours,” the leader has been recorded as saying. “You needn’t go into hysterics when I tell you that we’ve just been down to the bank and robbed it of every dollar in

YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND Cont. from page 4





Continued on page 9

Northfield, they found themselves riding a couple of Minnesota nags they’d actu-ally paid-for.

People wonder why Jesse and Frank would have headed southwest on their way home. Well, maybe it was because in the eyes of their pursuers, it was the least expected route, thus the safest. From Northfield, they could have gotten to the Mississippi River in fairly short order, but the authorities would have been looking for them there. And going southward, towards Iowa, would have been nearly suicidal – too many towns and people, too little cover and too many lawmen. Heading southwest toward the Missouri River, on the other hand, gave them a fighting chance of making it home.

Still in Rock County, the brothers’ next stop was at the homestead of a man named Rolph. Years later he would re-member that it was a Sunday morning – they hailed the house and asked for breakfast.

Frontier farmers usually accommodated strangers, and accordingly he invited them to take a seat at the table while his wife prepared food. Rolph thought it was odd that the strangers insisted on taking seats facing the open door so as to better observe anyone approaching. Explaining that he had chores to do, farmer Rolph said he’d need to go to the barn to milk his cows. At that, one of the guests or-dered him to, “Sit down and eat.”

Rolph protested. He said the milking couldn’t wait, but one of strangers, prob-ably Jesse (the more talkative of the two), unholstered his revolver, set it atop the table and told him in no uncertain terms, “Sit down!” Rolph got the message; his cows could wait. When the strangers had finished eating, they told him it might be wise to forget the direction they took in leaving. But, said the Argus Leader, “He didn’t.” Instead, he quickly reported the incident to lawmen in nearby Luverne, Minn.

There’s no proof that Rolph’s visitors were the James Boys of course, but at that time and place it was unusual for men to travel on horseback; they usually drove buggies or wagons, and it was even more

unusual for a man to be carrying a hol-stered revolver. If a man was armed, it was usually with a long-barreled shotgun. So, the odds are good that the men sitting at the Rolph family’s table that morning were Jesse and Frank James.

At Rolph’s notice to lawmen in Luverne that suspicious strangers were in the area, a posse was raised. They tracked two riders across the Minnesota border in a southwesterly direction across timbered ridges and through wooded, almost can-yon-like, ravines. It was on this leg of the trip that Jesse was said to have jumped his horse across what’s now called Devil’s Gulch – a chasm some 70-feet deep and 18-feet across. As for Frank? He was reported to have taken a different route that carried him safely past the posse with far less drama.

That same evening, Sept. 17, two men hailed-up at a “soddy” halfway between today’s Garretson and Valley Springs, S.D. A settler named Nelson was in his barnyard tending to his livestock when the strangers rode-up requesting water for themselves and their thirsty mounts.

From his well, Nelson drew a bucket of water. One of the horses drank. Nel-son meant to swab-out the bucket and fill it anew before offering it to the horse’s rider, but the man stopped him, saying, “Never mind. I’d rather drink after a horse than some of the men I’ve known.”

Nelson might have been forgiven if he’d felt a little edgy around the two men, but nevertheless he offered them supper, which would be served out of doors. To keep mosquitos at-bay, he built a large, smoky fire. He’d noticed that one of the riders hadn’t dismounted since they’d ar-rived, and he seemed to be in pain. Was it Frank? Carrying lead from Northfield? As the evening wore-on, Nelson’s guests grew tired – and grumpy. He later told an Argus Leader reporter that one of them asked him if the whole family planned to stay up all night gabbing. That sent the Nelsons to their beds, and soon their stranger-guests hit the road. Shortly af-terward they were back, though, to make an unauthorized exchange – their two horses for a pair of Nelson’s – and two colts. Both the mares were nearly blind. The colts were taken to keep them from

making a noisy ruckus at being separated from their mothers. They were released unharmed a short distance down the road.

Shortly after midnight that same eve-ning – a night that was long and busy if various reports are to be believed – two men stopped at the John Samuelson farm some two miles south of Nelson’s place. They asked for directions to Sioux Falls, even then Dakota Territory’s largest city. It’s doubtful they wanted to visit; they probably wanted to avoid it. Two hours later (around 2 or 3 a.m.) they showed up at the Homen farm, just south of Sioux Falls, and told Homen they were members of a posse looking for Jesse and Frank James! With thanks for a quick bite to eat, they got back on their horses and headed southwest. Some two hours later (it would have been sun-up by then) they “traded” their horses for two others, presumably with better eyesight. And by still another report, published in the Ar-gus Leader, two men stopped a stagecoach near Sioux Falls that same day. Robbery, however, was apparently not the motive. The stage was headed west for Yank-ton, then the territorial capitol; if it had been heading south, perhaps they’d have climbed aboard.

In the afternoon of that same day, the James brothers apparently crossed into Union County, Dakota Territory, near the now-vanished hamlet of Patten’s Mill. Still farther south, they stopped at the Rongstad farm near tiny Klondike and asked to spend the night. Rongstad told a reporter that one of the men was carry-ing a revolver and the other was bleeding. With word of the Northfield raid and its aftermath all the talk of the area, he sus-pected he was looking at Frank and Jesse, but he hid his concern. The two strang-ers left the following morning without incident.

Five miles south of Rongstad’s place, Peter Wahl and Andrew Sheldon, were watering their horses when two men rode up at a gallop and said, “Saddle up, boys and help us chase the Northfield rob-bers!” The young farmers were game, but once they had their mounts ready to




ride, one of the “posse” riders ordered them to trade. Wahl didn’t like the terms of the deal and said-so, but when one of the strangers pulled his pistol and “turned the crank,” he thought better of it.

Credit young Wahl for grit if nothing else. He rounded-up another horse and took-out after the two strangers. In what must have looked like a scene from a movie, he was riding hard and closing the gap. It’s unknown if he was armed – that might have been a detail he’d overlooked. But as he gained ground, Jesse and Frank warned him with gestures to keep his distance, but when he got too close, one of them reined-in his horse (Wahl’s, technically), took careful aim and put a slug through the neck of Wahl’s speedy mount.

Fortune finally smiled on Jesse and Frank later that day. In Plymouth County, Iowa, they spotted a man in a buggy. They stopped him and they must have been delighted to learn that he was a doc-tor – just what (presumably) Frank need-ed most at that very time. Dr. Mosher later reported that the two men treated him with greater deference than he would have expected from outlaws on the run, only asking that they adjourn to a roadside thicket where he could bandage Frank’s wound without being spotted by passers-by. They also forced him to trade his clothes for the blood-soaked items Frank had been wearing since Northfield.

The Big Sioux River separates Iowa from South Dakota near where the encounter with Dr. Mosher took place on its east side. But the river isn’t always big. In low-water years it would have been easy to ford, and apparently that’s what the James brothers did, because that same evening they arrived at the country home

of Reverend A.D. Krogness, a Lutheran pastor in nearby Canton, Dakota Terri-tory. His farm was on the west bank of the Big Sioux. Perhaps out of respect for the memory of their father, the Reverend Robert James, they politely asked to be fed dinner, then they stayed for the night in a bed that Krogness found stained with blood the following morning. After breakfast the next morning, they pre-pared to leave, but not without one of them telling the pastor, “I’m sorry, but I have to take your horse,” (or words to that effect). Krogness later recovered the horse.

As was the case with other outlaws who managed to gain a measure of public acclaim – John Dillinger, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, “Babyface” Nelson – Jesse and Frank James were remembered fondly by at least some of the people with whom they crossed paths. Reverend Krogness might have been among them. He must have been grateful that they’d treated him kindly and with respect. Af-ter all, they could have murdered him – and he knew it.

There’s just one final account of a pos-sible James sighting in what is now South Dakota. One day after they’d been host-ed by pastor Krogness, two dapper men in a buckboard showed up 30 or so miles south in tiny Spink, near the larger city of Vermillion. Witnesses recalled them as a talkative pair who delighted children by passing out handfuls of candy. Is it just me, or does that seem a little too far out of character for a couple of hard-bitten Missouri outlaws?

From Spink, if indeed they were ever there, the trail of Jesse and Frank across Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa grows cold. They could have made it to Sioux City, Iowa, and caught a ride on a

southward bound Missouri River steam-boat. They might have felt they were far enough from Northfield to safely board a train …

In a larger sense, Northfield also marked the end of the trail for the formidable outfit that the James/Younger gang had once been. Cole, Bob and Jim Younger were done with the business. Frank and Jesse separated and drifted south to try their hands at living normal lives with their families. Jesse and Frank would pull a few more robberies, but the men they recruited to help were clueless amateurs compared to the grizzly old Quantrill veterans who had ridden alongside them in the early days.

Do the recollections of those early Min-nesota and Dakota Territory settlers prove that they’d once crossed trails with the notorious James brothers? After all, when the newspaper collected those memories they were more than 40 years old. And couldn’t it have been just a hap-penstance series of encounters of sepa-rate pairs of strangers asking for food, lodging, water, direction, horses …?

Sure. But men carrying revolvers and shedding blood didn’t darken the door-ways of too many settlers back then. The fact that they remembered those encoun-ters so many years later gives evidence of that.

Something made those encounters mem-orable; something about those two men that left deep and lasting impressions. Since no physical descriptions of the two were recorded, they must have looked ordinary enough. It must have been an aura they projected, one that left those old Dakota farmers feeling they were in the presence of power, of authority – and of danger. Sounds like the James Boys to me.

FOJF GIFTS GRANT TO WILLIAM JEWELL STUDENTThe Friends of the James Farm has gifted $2,000 in a Journey Grant to William Jewell College for a student to expand on what is known about Rev. Robert S. James.

“Your support will help us provide a personal and transforming journey for one of our students and we look forward to work-ing with you to create this

opportunity,” said Tanna Campbell, Director of De-velopment at William Jewell.

We’ll keep you posted as a student is chosen and that student’s progress.



YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND Continued from page 7


the till. If you’ll go down there now you’ll find the cashier tied and then if you want any of us, why, just come down and take us. Thank you for your attention.”14 Thinking the speech was meant merely to disrupt the meeting, many ignored it, until some more curious citizens decided to check on the bank.

A posse was formed and the robbers chased. On 5 June, they were discov-ered at the Civil Bend school where a lo-cal farmer, John Corbit, agreed to assist the posse in trying to catch the robbers then holed up in a stable some 80 steps southwest of the school. At one point, the outlaws were given the chance to surren-der but replied stoically, “We cannot see it,” before mounting their horses and making their escape in a flurry of bullets. One horse, belonging to a member of the pos-se, was killed and a shotgun blast at least partially hit one of the robbers, causing him to drop his coat, later recovered no-ticeably bloodstained.

Two and a half miles further down the road, the outlaws were again come upon, but an accidental shot informed them of the posse’s approach and they once again escaped. The last time the posse met the outlaws was at Freeland’s Well but by now the posse was tired, while the out-laws had somehow obtained fresh horses and a renewed spirit that meant they were prepared to fight. The posse turned and retreated.

Shortly thereafter, on 12 June, a second posse was formed and led by none other than Robert Pinkerton of the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency. But al-though determined they found no trace of the robbers. William A. Pinkerton, son of founder Allan Pinkerton, stated that the Pinkerton Detective Agency was first retained after the Corydon bank robbery of 1871.15 Others joined in until newspa-per reports noted that “the pursuing party is now very large, it having been constantly added to its number since it left the town in which the depredation was committed, and it is to be hoped that the miscreants will soon be captured. The bank offers one thousand dollars reward for their apprehension and arrest.”16 Despite this, the robbers eventually escaped and in their wake came an interesting turn of events.

Unlike the earlier robberies, there was no long list of ex-guerrillas suspected of participation in the crime. There were no reports of ex-guerrillas being mobbed after proving an alibi. The only names linked to the crime were provided by the Hamilton News on 16 June, 1871. “From a description of the robbers,” the newspaper reported, “it is believed that the James boys, the Gallatin bank robbers, are of the party” – a party that included Clell Miller and Cole Younger. Another change was the sudden familiarity the robbers had with their sur-roundings – after the Gallatin robbery, it had been noted that the perpetrators, believed to be the James brothers, had re-quired the local knowledge of Reverend Helm to guide them around their own state of Missouri, but after the Corydon, Iowa, robbery those same perpetrators “seemed to know every inch of the ground and to be familiar with the names of parties along the road.”

In the wake of the attack on Corydon, towns in the vicinity seemed to agree with the residents of Chillicothe about what needed to happen next. In an ar-ticle dated 13 July 1871 and titled, Defen-sive League, the Grand River Republican, of Trenton, Mo., printed the following in an effort to rouse its own population:

We, the undersigned citizens of Chillicothe, in the county of Livingston, and State of Missouri, in

view of the prevalence of crime, and the frequency of attacks by robbers on neighboring towns, and the obvious necessity for preparing for self-defence, hereby agree to provide ourselves with arms and ammunition, and to keep the same at our places of business, in good order and ready for use at a moment’s notice; and we further agree that in case of attack on the city, or any part thereof, that we will promptly and mutually support and defend each other in such defence of said city. Signed by 140 citizens.

The reporters of Trenton believed it was a step in the right direction.

Two months after the robbery, Agent Westfall (or Westphall by some accounts), a Pinkerton operative, arrested Clell Miller and took him back to Corydon to stand trial. On 8 March, 1872, a Liberty resident, in a letter to his sister reported that “old Moses Miller’s son Clell was hung a few days since for robbing a bank in Iowa. They caught him and he acknowledged the crime, and they hung him on the spot.”17 This was incorrect. Clell Miller appeared for the start of his week long trial on 22 Octo-ber 1872, unharmed and defended by no less than three lawyers, one of whom was ex-Union army captain, Jon W. McCla-nahan. By that time the James brothers were well known; robberies at Columbia, Ky., on 29 April 1872, and the Kansas City Fairground Gates, on 26 September of the same year had been added to their growing list of misdemeanors, as had the killing of a cashier and the wounding of a young girl. It didn’t take long before local opinion reasoned that, despite Clell Mill-er’s acquittal for his part in the Corydon robbery, his guilt could be measured by the cost of his impressive defence team, no doubt paid for by the citizens of Co-lumbia and the patrons of the Kansas City Fair.

Certainties regarding Frank James’ in-volvement in the Corydon robbery seem linked to the notion that he was one of the Gallatin robbers. At Frank’s trial, J. O. Shelby made a comment to the effect that Frank James had been at his home in 1872, “bleeding at the lungs,” and since then it has been suggested that Frank was the Corydon robber wounded dur-ing the fight at the stable near the Civil Bend schoolhouse. He was acquitted of

Lee B. McMurtry: “Confederate Guerrilla Sue Mundy: A Biography of Kentucky Soldier Jerome Clarke.” By Thomas Shelby Watson and Perry A. Brantle.



YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND Continued from page 10

all charges.18

As would become his custom, Jesse de-nied the charges against him, saying that the idea of “Frank and I robbing a bank in Iowa or anywhere else, is as base a falsehood as ever was uttered from human lips.” Initially, he held back the names of those “best citizens of Missouri” who could prove he was in-nocent of the Corydon robbery, reason-ing that it was now “pointless” for him to do so. “One year ago,” he explained, “I proved an alibi by some of the best citizens in the state, and proved enough to satisfy every honest man that I was innocent of the killing of Cap-tain Sheets, at Gallatin, but the degraded Radical party criticized my alibi and insinuated that I had bribed my witnesses. And just so it would be in this case if I was to prove an alibi.”19 How-ever, two years later, within a special in-terview for the St. Louis Dispatch, Jesse had a change of heart and offered further de-tails regarding his alleged whereabouts, and the whereabouts of his brother, at the time of the Corydon robbery. “Frank was home in bed with a severe attack of intermittent fever,” he claimed, and perhaps explain-ing the illness witnessed by J.O Shelby, “and I was in West Kansas City, at the house of Mr. Lee B. McMurtry. Mr. McMurtry,” Jesse continued, “was living then in the same house with Policeman McKnight, of the patrol force. I conversed freely with these two gentlemen, and with many others, about the depots in the bottom. Also with a reporter from the Times by the name of Timlin [sic].” 20 In fact H. D. Timblin was then working as their Commercial Editor.21

It is unclear as to why Lee McMurtry, who appears on the 1870 census living in Independence, was, by June 1871, living with Officer McKnight, but it is certainly not an impossibility. James D. McKnight was then living at West Liberty Street in Kansas City, Mo., and, as Jesse had stated, was employed there as a police-man. James McKnight had immigrated to the United States from Ireland and had made the police force something of a career until poor health determined a change of employment.

Death of Detective McKnight

Jas D. McKnight will be buried tomorrow by Undertaker Carlat, at the Wyandotte Catholic

Cemetery. McKnight was appointed a detective in this city in 1874 and was re-appointed six years later. On account of poor health, he soon after resigned the position. He was a cooper by trade and at the time of his death was living at 1248 Liberty St, West Kansas. He was a vic-tim of consumption for years, but it was in his case aggravated since last summer. Owing to his illness, his family are in straitened circumstances, and the cooper’s associations of the two Kansas cities, together with the police, are arranging to give a benefit for the family. McKnight was taken worse yesterday morning until he became too weak to cough and death ensued at the late hour last night.22

With Jesse James still wanted for robbery and murder at Gallatin, it is difficult to imagine that he could have met such men in Kansas City without a certain amount of masquerading. Still, the unlikely trio’s discussion about the “depots in the bot-tom” was an entirely feasible one. Home to both Policeman McKnight and the various railroad depots, including Union station, the West Bottoms area was prone to severe flooding and finding a solution was a local priority.23

For his part, Jesse was right – very few people, perhaps none, believe he was in-nocent of the Corydon robbery. Stories have been passed down through genera-tions of Iowa residents. “I remember my fa-ther telling me a story that his grandfather had told him about Jesse James robbing a bank at Co-rydon, Iowa,” local resident John Caldwell reminisced to author and historian John Koblas in 2004.24 He retold the story, like so many others have, of Jesse stopping at the church to tell the locals that he had just robbed the bank and how they had stopped at a relative’s house during their escape, taken their leave before breakfast, making sure they left a few ill-gotten coins to thank the gentle folk for their kindness. The stuff of legends!

It is unclear as to whether anyone asked Lee McMurtry about his meeting that day with Jesse James and that omission, in turn, makes it unclear as to whether Jesse was telling the truth or if he, like his brother, could merely count on old friends to bend the truth to help them out a little.

Lee McMurtry is buried in the Riverside cemetery, Wichita Falls, Texas, the same

cemetery in which is buried Jesse and Frank’s sister, Susan.

Notes & Sources1. Missouri Pioneer Families History 1876, ancestry.com;

Susan Ormesher, Missouri Marriages Before 1840, reprinted for Clearfield Co. Inc. by the Genealogical Publications Inc., Baltimore, 2001, p147.

2. www.ourberryfamily.com. Barba was born in Tennessee on 27 July 1793.

3. Online genealogy; Callaway County Gazette, 8 August 1879; 1850 census; 1860 census; Nancy McMurtry married William H. Morris on 27 October 1853; correspondence with Gay Mathis.

4. Hamp Watts, The Babe of the Company, originally published by the Fayette Democrat-Leader Press in 1913, republished in 1996 by Oak Hills Publishing, Springfield Missouri, pp 10-11.

5. Hamp Watts, op.cit., pp 14-19.6. John Newman Edwards, Noted Guerillas; or the Warfare of

the Border, Morningside Edition, 1976, pp291-2.7. Hamp Watts, op.cit., pp 14-19.8. Albert Castel, William Clarke Quantrill His Life and Times,

University of Oklahoma Press, 1999, p186.9. John McCorkle, Three Years With Quantrill – A TRUE STORY

Told by His Scout John McCorkle, University of Oklahoma Press, 1992, p161.

10. Their first child, Grizelle, was born on 16 September, 1868, married Joe W. Houston at Salt Lake City, Utah, and passed away 21 March 1943, while their second daughter, Avon, married D. W. Harcrow and passed away in Los Angeles, California, on 16 December 1930. Correspondence with Gay Mathis.

11. Wichita Daily Times (Wichita Falls, Texas) 23 June, 1908.12. John Koblas, Jesse James in Iowa, North Star Press of St

Cloud, Minnesota, 2006, p68.13. John Koblas, op. cit. pp68-9; James P. Muehlberger, The

Lost Cause – The Trials of Frank and Jesse James, Westholme Publishing, 2013, pp79, 89.

14. J. W. Buell, The Border Outlaws, online version, p 157.15. William A. Settle, Jesse James Was His Name, Bison Books,

1966, p58.16. Liberty Tribune, 16 June, 1871.17. T. J. Stiles, Jesse James – Last Rebel of the Civil War, Alfred A.

Knopf, 2001, p218, quoting letter Brother to Darling sister, 8 March 1872. Watkins Mill.

18. The Wide Awake Library, The Life and Trial of Frank James. 28 September, 1883, p15.

19. Kansas City Times, 8 July, 1871.20. A Terrible Quintette, special supplement to the St. Louis

Dispatch, 22 November 1873.21. Kansas City Directory, 1871; correspondence with Gay

Mathis.22. Kansas City Star, 19 February, 1884.23. Correspondence with Chuck Rabas.24. John Caldwell letter to John Koblas, 9 December 2004.

WHERE TO DONATEA donation can be sent directly to the FOJF, P.O. Box 404, Liberty, MO 64069 (We are a 501(c)3)

WANT TO JOIN THE FRIENDS?Fill out the form on the back page of this newsletter.

– www.jessejames.org



The farm's new exhibit, “The Later Years: The James Farm from 1911 to 1980” is now on display in the museum’s third gallery. Come check it out!

SAVE THE DATEFOJF REUNION SATURDAY, OCT. 1

We’re changing up things a bit this year for our bi-an-nual Friends of the James Farm Reunion. We may even change the name ... but not yet!

We’ve decided to move the date to the first Saturday in October - this year it’s Oct. 1. And, we’re moving the location to the CLAYBROOK SHELTER located di-rectly across the street from the Jesse James Farm & Mu-seum in Kearney.

The shelter offers nine picnic tables, several grills, elec-tricity and restrooms.

We’re still in the planning stages, but for sure we hope to have music, food, drink and more, including our annual meeting. Look for more information in a future edition of the Friends of the James Farm Journal. And ... SAVE THE DATE!

New Exhibit

THE LATER YEARSThe James Farm from 1911 to 1980



These events led to the Battle of Prairie Grove, Ark., a battle that has held great interest for me since my own maternal great-grandfather participated in that battle. William Elgin Watson was just 15 when he joined the 11th Missouri Infan-try, Company F. Watson was shot in both thighs, captured and taken prisoner by the Federals at the tender age of 15. He was sent to a Union prison in Shreveport, La., where he was paroled June 8, 1865.

It is amazing to me that my great-great-grandfather Watson fought on the battle-field at Prairie Grove with Shelby, Ed-wards and Frank James, among other notable Confederate soldiers.

Edwards described the impending battle the night before it began, “The moon this night had been eclipsed, too, and upon many of the soldiers the weird, mysterious appearance of the sky, the pale, ghost-like phantom of a cloud across its crimson disc, had much of superstitious influence. At first, when the glowing camp fires had burned low and comfortable, a great flood

of radiance was pouring over the mountains and silvering even the hoary white beard of the moss clustering about the blank, bare faces of the precipices. The shadows contracted finally. The moon seemed on fire and burned itself to ashes. The gigantic buckler of the heavens, studded all over with star-diamonds, had for its boss a bloomy, yel-lowish, struggling moon. Like a wounded king, it seemed to bleed royally over the nearest cloud, and then wrap its dark mantle about its face, even as Caesar did and sink gradually into ex-tinction. There was a hollow grief of the winds among the trees and the snowy phantasm of the frost crinkled and rustled its gauze robes under foot. The men talked in subdued voices around their camp-fires, and were anxious to draw from the eclipse some happy augury. Re-lief exhibited itself on every face when the moon at least shone out broad and good and the dark shadows were again lit up with tremulous rays of light.” 6

On a frosty December morning – Dec. 7, 1862, the battle began. With the desire to destroy Brig. Gen. Francis Herron’s and Brig. Gen. James Blunt’s divisions before they joined forces, Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman placed his large force between the two Union divi-sions, turning on Herron first and rout-ing his cavalry. As Hindman pursued the cavalry, he met Herron’s infantry, which pushed him back.

The Rebels then established their line of battle on a wooded high ridge northeast of Prairie Grove Church. After the fail-ure of two Federal assaults, a spirited ar-tillery duel kept the opposing forces from gaining any advantage.

Hearing the cannon fire from Herron’s fight, Blunt moved his division toward the sound of the fighting and assailed the left flank of the Confederates.

Hindman parried Blunt’s advance, but was unable to make any further progress

against Herron. Though the battle ended as a stalemate, nightfall saw Hindman’s force retreating to Van Buren, establish-ing Federal control of northwest Arkan-sas.

Edwards was described as “brave and fear-less, and wise in council, but gentle, tender, cour-teous to the humblest soldier beneath him. As he was whole-hearted in the cause he spoused, so dealt he kindly with the men that shared his con-victions and the fortunes of a common cause.” 7

The Battle of Prairie Grove was only one of many battles in which Edwards fought. On July 4, 1865, with the war ending in defeat for the Confederates, Shelby led the last of his horsemen numbering sev-eral hundred, across the Rio Grande on a makeshift bridge into Mexico.

Edwards was a 27-year-old man who had seen far too much for his tender years and was already chronicling about Shelby’s exploits in his usual poetic prose.

By moving into Mexico, the beleaguered soldiers crossed over into yet another boiling pot of controversy. Namely, the invasion of French forces led by Napo-leon Bonaparte’s nephew, Louis Napo-leon. This new regime had quietly sup-ported the Confederacy, which likely was the reason Shelby and his fleeing fellow compatriots, generals Hindman, Jubal Early and Sterling Price, among others, to enter Mexico.

Juaristas, who were supporters of the de-posed Mexican president Benito Juarez, were gaining strength in their struggle against the French regime. The Juaristas ambushed the Confederates just a few weeks after they moved into Mexico on July 28, 1865 – guerrilla style.

Shelby and his men battled their way out of the ambush and headed to Mexico City, which was not without its own prob-lems. Along the way they battled with French soldiers as well. After Shelby and his men reached Mexico City, Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota gave them audience, which included adjutant Edwards.

John Newman Edwards became rather smitten with Empress Carlota. What occurred with that longing is unknown.

EDWARDS Continued from page 5

Gen. Jo Shelby was a local Confederate general, who lived in Wa-verly, Mo. John Newman Edwards served under Shelby throughout the Civil War, even exiling with the general in Mexico after the war.




Was it unrequited? Or not.

Meanwhile, Maximillian seemed per-fectly happy to take homes and property from legitimate Mexican owners to gift to the Confederate stragglers.

Under the protection of French troops, Shelby and his group began building large plantations and settled into a comfortable life. Edwards himself received 500 acres of land he called “magnificent.” He even found a newspaper, the Mexican Times, that was written in English, in which he could work.

Despite the somewhat idyllic life, the Confederate men were restless and missed their homeland. “I’m here as an ex-ile,” said Shelby on Nov. 1, 1865, “defeated by the acts of the southern people themselves.” 8

Edwards had become used to a soldier’s life, the rush of battle and intrigue and was already growing weary of the lan-guishing lifestyle of a plantation owner. He’d now been through four years of

war and a year in exile, he was looking for something to change.

He would get his wish.

The Juaristas began to gain ground as 1866 got underway. They attacked the Confederate colonies and drew them into battle. Shelby was under fire constantly. The Juaristas drove the French troops with full attacks all the way to the coast. They captured Emperor Maximilian and executed him June 19, 1867 and took Mexico City July 4.

Where was Empress Carlota while this was going on? "In a desperate attempt to save her husband's throne, Carlota returned to Europe (prior to the capture of her husband), seeking assistance for her husband in Paris, Vi-enna, and finally in Rome from Pope Pius IX. Her efforts failed; she manifested symptoms of paranoia, suffered a profound cognitive and emo-tional collapse, and never returned to Mexico.9

Shelby decided it was time to turn tail and return to Missouri, which he did, return-ing to his plantation in Lafayette County. Edwards took a job with the St. Louis-based newspaper, The Republican (also known as the Daily Missouri Republican). During that time, Edwards published his

book on Shelby’s wartime exploits, “Shelby and His Men.”

“Believing that the Confederate War was a grand panorama of heroic endurance and devot-ed courage, I bring this picture as an offering and lay it upon the altar of Southern glory and renown. I have written of Shelby and his Division be-cause I served with them, and because I desire, if possible, to hang another garland upon the brow of one who gathered his laurels from the close and serried ranks of his enemies. To the memory of my dead comrades of Shelby’s Mis-souri Cavalry Division – to the young and the brave who fell fighting manfully for the proud, imperial South – this monu-ment is erected by the unskilled hands of the Author.” 10

It is believed that by this time Edwards had be-

come a heavy drinker. He eventually quit the Republican and headed west to Kansas City where he and Col. John C. Moore founded The Kansas City Times with the financial backing of R.B. Drury & Company.

The paper was a daily in a town that was growing by leaps and bounds. Edwards and his notorious opinions quickly gar-nered him attention. He wrote opinion piece after opinion piece about Shelby’s exploits, the Confederates and “continu-ously stressed the righteousness of the rebel strug-gle.” 11

Meanwhile, Edwards managed to find himself a wife. He married Mary Virginia Pattenburg, of Dover, Lafayette County, Mo., March 28, 1871, at Shelby’s home near Aullville, Mo.

By 1870, Jesse James had allegedly ex-tracted revenge of Bloody Bill Ander-son’s murder in Gallatin, attracting the attention of Edwards. Since the James brothers were acquainted with Shelby from the war, it is likely Edwards knew of


It has been written that Edwards was smitten with Empress Carlota of Mexico, above. Indeed she was a beautiful woman and there were rumors of affairs during her time in Mexico, but nothing ever proven. Nevertheless, Edwards, right, would return to Missouri where he would eventually co-found The Kansas City Times, author books, marry and become the written benefactor of Frank and Jesse James.




the brothers, if he didn’t in fact know the brothers prior to their outlaw days.

The bloodshed of the Gallatin killing would likely have been attractive to Ed-wards whose reputation in war was one of fierceness in battle and who enjoyed the rush that came with war.

The aftermath of the war in Missouri brought its own challenges as it did in every other state, which likely provided fodder for Edwards’ columns for years – the James brothers a centerpiece for Ed-wards to vent.

In fact, Jesse James wrote a letter in June 1870 to the Kansas City Times pleading his innocence in the Gallatin murder of John Sheets.

James had garnered Edwards’ interest. It would later become an obsession with Edwards that would continue until well after Jesse’s death – in fact, it would link the two men for centuries.


Notes & Sources1. John N. Edwards: Biography, Memoirs, Reminiscences and

Recollections, edited by Jennie Edwards 1889; John Newman Edwards Biographical Sketch, by Rev. Geo. Plattenburg, Dover, Mo.

2. Ibid.3. Ibid.4. Ibid.5. Ibid.6. Ibid.7. Ibid.8. T.J. Stiles, “Jesse James: The Last Rebel of the Civil War.”9. Wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlota_of_Mexico.10. John Newman Edwards, “Shelby and His Men,” 1867, preface.11. John Newman Edwards, “Shelby and His Men,” 1867.

Dear FOJF Member:

Why did you join the Friends of the James Farm? Likely it's be-cause you have a passion for

history, perhaps you are a family member! Maybe generations of your family come from Missouri and you savor being a part of the James family’s incredible history.

No matter the reason you joined “The Friends” – we hope you will continue your membership – to support and promote the James Farm, often known simply as “the birthplace of Jesse James.” The his-tory is deep, from the old farmhouse, to Rev James’ ministry and travels to the California gold fields, to the Civil War, to life after Jesse’s death.

Your membership to the FOJF supports the preservation of this history and helps to educate others. Visitors come to the farm from all over the world. It’s impor-tant to keep this draw to Kearney, Mis-souri and the notorious guerrillas and outlaws, Frank and Jesse James, to con-tinue for years to come.

Please fill out the renewal form found on the back page (16) of this newsletter and return it by Feb. 1 to continue your membership with the Friends of the James Farm. Feel free to invite your friends to join as well. Visit our website at www.jesse-james.org and click on the mem-

bership application at the bottom of the main page.

We look forward to seeing you at our reunion later this year! See page 12 for more.

We welcome your input. What would you like to see, experience, learn? We would love to hear from you. Have you been to the farm? Share your photos with us. We now have a very popular Facebook page (Friends of the James Farm) and invite you to “like” our page and please contribute!

YOU CAN SUPPORT FOJF WHEN YOU SHOP AT AMAZON!

Some Amazon customers have chosen to support the Friends of the James Farm when they shop at AmazonSmile, http://smile.amazon.com. We are now registered as the FOTJF Organization on Amazon-Smile, the link to our site is https://smile.amazon.com/ch/43-1254490. It is a way to give back to the Friends of the James Farm and the contribution is from Ama-zon.

HAVE YOU RENEWED YOUR FOJF MEMBERSHIP?

LIN

KS Midwest Genealogy: http://www.mymcpl.org/genealogy

Mid-Continent Public Library Woodneath Branch: http://www.mymcpl.org/about-us/woodneath-library-center

Civil War Roundtable of Kansas City: http://cwrtkc.org/

Follow the Friends of the James Farm on Facebook

The Jesse James Farm and Museum too and

The Jesse James Bank Museum

LIN

KS




Friends of the James FarmP.O. Box 404Liberty, MO 64069www.jessejames.org816.736.8500

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