On January 10, 1843, outlaw Frank James, the older
brother of Jesse, was born in Clay County, Missouri. Frank and Jesse James were
both legends in their own time, though Jesse is better remembered today because
of his more dramatically violent death. The two Missouri brothers drifted into
a life of crime after serving in Confederate guerilla forces during the Civil
War. They began robbing banks in 1866, and their bold and impudent style won
them a good measure of popular admiration. Once Jesse stopped to tell a crowd
of townspeople gathered for a political speech that he thought something might
be wrong at the bank he and Frank had just robbed. On another occasion, they
staged an audacious hold-up of a Kansas City fair box office in the middle of a
crowd of 10,000 people.
In an era of lingering sectional hatred and increasing
public dislike for large corporate railroads and banks, some Americans began to
see the James brothers as heroes, modern-day Robin Hoods who stole from the
rich and gave to the poor. Newspapers, eager to increase their readership,
contributed to this mythic view of the brothers. In reality, the James brothers
were brutal criminals who willingly killed innocent victims in their pursuit of
money, but misguided public sympathy for the men was so great that the Missouri
state legislature at one point nearly approved a measure granting amnesty to
the entire James gang.
After the brothers murdered two innocent men during an
1881 train robbery, the governor issued a reward of $5,000 each for the capture
of Jesse and Frank. Shot down for reward money in 1882 by one of his own gang
members, Jesse achieved a false but enduring reputation as a martyr in the
cause of the common people against powerful interests. Had Frank suffered the
same fate, no doubt he too would have achieved legendary status but he wisely
preferred long life to martyrdom, and he turned himself in a few months after
his brother was murdered. Prosecutors were unable to convince juries that Frank
was a criminal, and he was declared a free man after avoiding conviction at
three separate trials in Missouri and Alabama. Entering middle age and having
grown weary of the criminal life, Frank James was not so foolish as to tempt
fate and the watchful eyes of Missouri law officers by resuming his old ways.
For the next 30 years, he lived an honest and peaceful existence, working as a
race starter at county fairs, a theater doorman, and a star attraction in
traveling theater companies. In 1903, he joined forces with his old criminal
partner Cole Younger to form the James-Younger Wild West Show. Frank retired to
his family's old farm in Missouri, where he died at the age of 72 in 1915.
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for Crime Magazine.com and is also the author of Murder and Mayhem: 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949. The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:
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