JESSE JAMES

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c187/john-wayne/John%20Wayne/435px-Jesse_james_portrait.jpg..http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c187/john-wayne/John%20Wayne/Jesse_James.jpg

Born
Jesse Woodson James
September 5, 1847
Clay County, Missouri, USA

Died
April 3, 1882 (aged 34)
St. Joseph, Missouri, USA

Spouse(s)
Zerelda Mimms

Children
Jesse E. James,
Mary James Barr
Parents
Robert S. James, Zerelda Cole James

Occupation
Farmer, Train Robber, Bank Robber, Outlaw

Mini-Biography
Full Biography Jesse James (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_James)

Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank and 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 economic justice.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c187/john-wayne/John%20Wayne/Jesse_and_Frank_James.gif

Jesse and his older 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 and murdered bank employees or bystanders. They also robbed 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.

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.
Information from Wikipedia.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c187/john-wayne/John%20Wayne/800px-Jess-james2.jpg
Site at 1318 Lafayette, where James was killed.
To the right is the top of Patee House,
where his mother Zerelda stayed after his death.
His house was moved to the Patee House grounds.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c187/john-wayne/John%20Wayne/800px-Jesse-james-home1.jpg
Jesse James's home in St. Joseph, where he was shot.

Rumors of survival
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.

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's surviving relatives.

Compiled and edited by ethanedwards
Information and Photographs from Wikipedia

Jesse James was a distant cousin of mine. He was an older second cousin of my maternal grandpa. Thank goodness, my grandpa didn't follow in Jesse's footsteps.

I've got both the old James films on disc. They're both excellent movies.