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Who was Jesse James? Why was and is he considered a folk hero? How did he manage to avoid capture for so many years? And was he killed by Robert Ford in 1882?
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00:00This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.
00:11The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.
00:22Quantrill's Raiders. The Hole in the Wall Gang.
00:26Colorful names for bands of outlaws that roamed the West during and after the Civil War.
00:31No one earned more fame, however, than Jesse James, the Robin Hood of Western outlaws.
00:46Most historians maintain that Jesse was killed six years after his doomed Northfield, Minnesota raid.
00:53Yet in 1948, J. Frank Dalton claimed he was Jesse James.
00:59Is it possible that Jesse James could have perpetrated a hoax on the entire country for over 60 years?
01:06Jesse James was a lad who killed many men.
01:20He robbed the Glendale train.
01:24And he stole from the ridge to give to the poor.
01:28Everyone knew of his name.
01:34Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life.
01:38Two children, they were brave.
01:42But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
01:47laid Jesse James in his grave.
01:51It was on a Saturday night, Jesse was alone, talking to his family so brave.
02:03Robert Ford came along like a thief in the night, and laid poor Jesse in his grave.
02:11Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life.
02:17Two children, they were brave.
02:22But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
02:27laid Jesse James in his grave.
02:31Yeah, that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
02:36laid Jesse James in his grave.
02:40On April 3rd, 1882, Jesse James was straightening a picture
02:47when suddenly a gunshot was fired.
02:49Reports said that Jesse James was dead.
02:52Was it really Jesse James who was shot in the head that day in Kearney, Missouri?
02:57By examining his life, we will perhaps find an answer to the question of his death.
03:01Jesse James is the only outlaw whose birthplace has been immortalized as a state monument.
03:14The house's curator is Dr. Milton Perry.
03:18Jesse James is America's Robin Hood in legend.
03:21I don't think there's any question about that.
03:23The famous Robin Hood story is the one in which Frank and Jesse were returning from a robbery.
03:30And depending upon where you've heard it, it could have taken place in Missouri or Arkansas or Kentucky or wherever.
03:36And they stopped at a farmhouse and asked for lunch.
03:39The farm lady, and that was a customer at the time, consented and was fixing their meal.
03:45And while she was doing this, they noticed she was crying.
03:48And they asked her the reason why.
03:50She said that she was a widow with two young children
03:52and that the house was a mortgage and the mortgage would be foreclosed that afternoon.
03:59So Frank or Jesse supposedly tell her that they are Frank and Jesse
04:04and they would like to help her pay off the mortgage.
04:07And they asked her how much it was.
04:09She named the sum.
04:10They gave her the money.
04:11They left.
04:12The banker came.
04:14The mortgage was paid.
04:15It was burned.
04:16But strangely, on the way back, the banker was ambushed by two masked men who stole all the money he had.
04:22John Quantrill led a group of ex-Confederate raiders of which Frank and Jesse were members.
04:26Frank and Jesse both joined Quantrill's raiders during the Civil War
04:30because they were a very popular unit from this area.
04:34And they were directly associated with a number of Quantrill's men.
04:37And during that period of their career, as a part of the operation of the guerrillas,
04:44they would capture towns, and of course among the towns, in the towns were the banks.
04:49And so they had perpetrated daylight bank holdups as a part of their military actions.
04:53But strangely enough, it had never been done in peacetime.
04:56So it would happen here in Liberty.
05:00The Liberty Bank raid recreated from eyewitness accounts established a method of operation for Jesse and Frank.
05:07Jesse, the more aggressive, would charge forward while Frank held bank personnel at bay.
05:13On their very first holdup, they managed to secure more than $70,000, a small fortune at that time.
05:24The gang was probably originated with Frank and probably at Frank's instigation along with other people.
05:34Jesse seems to have joined the gang more as an afterthought than anything else.
05:38But he gradually became the leader of the gang, probably because he was more of a team person and was probably a more popular person and convinced people to his ways.
05:48Jesse was much more outgoing than Frank, very friendly, had a very strong sense of humor,
05:53and was a very easy-going person and had a lot of friends and knew a lot of people.
05:58Frank was just the opposite.
06:00Frank was very quiet, very door, very taciturn, probably never told a joke in his life, liked to read, could quote Shakespeare,
06:08and was a very, very private person.
06:12It's an interesting story that they managed to stay in business for 16 years and they were never caught.
06:18Jesse, of course, was killed and Frank surrendered,
06:21partially because of the fact that they were very popular in the way they operated.
06:27You have to remember that they concentrated on banks and railroads.
06:32They didn't hold up the corner grocery store.
06:34They didn't mug people for the milk money, and they didn't burglar people's homes.
06:40They became very popular in that banks and railroads were among the most hated institutions by the average people in the country.
06:47So they had lots of friends, and these friends would hide them out.
06:55By 1876, the strain of outlaw life was taking a toll on Jesse and the gang.
07:01Jesse was forced to tour saloons looking for members who had been drinking.
07:18The risk of being seen in town before a job cut the odds of getting away.
07:24Jesse was afraid that someone might recognize them and set up an ambush.
07:27September 7th, 1876.
07:40Jesse and his seven followers carefully prepared for their raid.
07:44No pistol or horse went unchecked.
07:47The gang had established a reputation for being nearly fanatical in the way they readied themselves for hold-ups.
07:53Little did anyone know that this would be the last raid for the entire gang.
07:59They donned their infamous white dusters for the hold-up.
08:03By now, after so many successful bank raids, they were almost arrogant in their approach.
08:09Some two miles out of Northfield, they set their plan in motion.
08:13Now they were ready.
08:16Jesse had decided that they would split into two groups,
08:18each entering town from opposite directions.
08:30Northfield was a small community of 500 people.
08:34It was a center for agriculture, industry, and banking trade.
08:38Their target bank was in fact the point of deposit for a number of smaller area banks.
08:43While Jesse was not known to the Northfield people,
09:05the gang came under instant suspicion because of extremely fine horses they were riding
09:11and the startling appearance of their linen dusters.
09:29As the group rode in, they warily inspected the town,
09:32looking for anyone who would spell trouble.
09:34Little do they know that this raid would be the end of their long string of successful bank robberies.
10:04Uh-uh.
10:11Come on.
10:18Come on.
10:30Come on.
10:31Come on.
10:32As always, Jesse James leaped over the counter, demanding that the money be handed over.
10:59Several of the bank employees grappled with the bandits.
11:02In the confusion, one of the tellers escaped, yelling, murder, murder.
11:08Jesse fired at the fleeing man, but missed.
11:24Had the town been warned?
11:27It seemed so.
11:29Within minutes, armed townspeople began shooting at the gap.
11:36Come on.
11:38Come on.
11:40Come on.
11:42Come on.
11:46Let's go.
12:16Killed instantly were Clee Miller, Charlie Pitts, and another member of the gang, Bill Edgewood. Jim Younger and his brothers Bob and Cole Younger were wounded. Only the James boys escaped unharmed.
12:31There were falling outs between Frank and Jesse, and as a matter of fact, after Northfield, the rift became very, very great, and at the time Jesse was killed, it's very possible that Frank and Jesse weren't even communicating with one another.
12:44After the Northfield raid, the prices on Jesse and Frank's heads continued to grow. Bounty hunters and adventurers began tracking the brothers in order to earn the ever-increasing reward.
12:56No longer were the James boys protected by the friendship of numerous people.
13:02Bob Ford is the man most historians claim killed Jesse James.
13:15There are, however, conflicting stories about Jesse's death. Jesse was planning the robbery of the Platte City Bank with Charlie and Bob Ford.
13:26Zerelda James, Jesse's wife, was working in the kitchen while Jesse laid out his ideas for a successful raid.
13:36Uncharacteristically, Jesse took off his gun so that he could more easily straighten the picture.
13:52Charlie Ford motioned to his brother to stand. Bob, being the more accurate of the two men, stood, took careful aim, and shot Jesse in the head.
14:03Both Ford brothers claimed it was an accident.
14:11Could it be, however, part of a plot to end the pursuit of Jesse?
14:15It is known that Jesse's mother refused to identify the body.
14:22Some have said that the man shot was not Jesse James.
14:26Others have said that James lived incognito for the next 60 years under an assumed name.
14:31In 1948, a man by the name of J. Frank Dalton came forward, claiming that he was the real Jesse James.
14:41Dalton went so far as signing an affidavit to the effect that he was Jesse James.
14:49According to newspaper clippings of the time, some 25,000 people turned out for a parade in Lawton, Oklahoma,
14:57showing off Dalton as the real Jesse James.
15:01It seems almost inconceivable that an imposter could have been in Jesse's place.
15:08Yet only a few relatives had pictures of Jesse, which is one of the reasons he had eluded capture.
15:15Carl Brien, a respected historian of the James robberies and author of the escapades of Frank and Jesse James.
15:21The statement that Mrs. Zerelda James' state of the body was not that of her son, Jesse James, is not too hard to understand
15:29because during the Western days, there was a lot of people who would not identify outlaws and so on
15:35in order that the reward would not be paid.
15:38But later on, she says it was, and Zerelda James did admit that it was her son, and there's no question that it was.
15:45After being on public display, Jesse was buried at his mother's home.
15:55Interestingly enough, he was later moved to a public cemetery.
15:59There's absolutely no question but Bob Ford killed Jesse James.
16:11I don't think there's any question that Bob Ford killed Jesse James on that day as he says he did.
16:19Dalton maintained that it wasn't Jesse who was shot, but a man named Charlie Bigelow.
16:23No one has ever been able to identify who Charlie Bigelow was.
16:28There was no gang member ever named Charlie Bigelow, and as far as we've been able to find,
16:32we've never found any instance of anyone that they associated with named Charlie Bigelow.
16:39Ironically, however, John Nicholson, Jesse James' grandnephew, was able to lead, in search of cameras,
16:45to the very site where two Bigelow brothers were buried.
16:48Nicholson explains what he knows about their mysterious deaths.
16:55The Bigelow was buried in the old Haynesville Cemetery.
17:00All, I read it by Hope, Missouri.
17:04Their gravestones have fell over,
17:08and very hard to find.
17:09And I've heard my grandfather say that they was hauled up there in an old spring wagon,
17:21and that the blood was running out into the spring wagon on the ground
17:27when they was hauled up there because there was no embalming at that time.
17:32As far as I know, I've heard that Jesse and Frank killed them,
17:38but as far as that, I couldn't say for sure.
17:43Both grave markers bear the year 1884.
17:47If John Nicholson's story is correct,
17:49the Bigelows would have been buried two years after Jesse's death in 1882.
17:54John James was in the picture in 1935.
18:02He came forward and said that he was Jesse James.
18:05He had the same name but no relation.
18:07And there was a famous trial in Excelsior Springs at that particular time
18:11for this disproving or proving that he was Jesse James,
18:15and he could not even name his half-brother's name.
18:18And he found out that he was using the same story that Dalton used,
18:24that Bigelow was transferred to be Jesse James,
18:28and he was killed so Jesse could get away.
18:31And, of course, Jesse James was such a family-loving man
18:34that even if the story had been true,
18:36he would have never left his family,
18:39Jesse, to do like they were for many years after his death.
18:41Jesse James was a lad who killed many men.
18:46He robbed the Glendale train
18:50And he stole from the rich to give to the poor
18:55Everyone heard of his name
18:58Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life
19:04Two children, they were brave
19:08But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
19:13laid poor Jesse in his grave
19:17It was a Saturday night
19:22And Jesse was alone
19:24Talking to his family so brave
19:28Robert Ford came along like a thief in the night
19:34And laid poor Jesse in his grave
19:37Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life
19:43Two children, they were brave
19:47But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
19:52laid Jesse James in his grave
19:55Yes, that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
20:01laid Jesse James in his grave
20:05James, both in this country and abroad,
20:09is one of the best-known Americans, of all Americans,
20:13who ever lived at any time and any period.
20:16And he's also the Robin Hood, the romantic figure
20:21in our folklore and legend and history
20:23And I think it's because Jesse James had style
20:26I think he had mystique
20:28He was daring
20:29He was a cavalier-type person
20:31And I think it captured the public imagination then
20:34And I think it still captured the public imagination
20:37Because it was a very romantic time
20:39I maintain that if there wasn't a Jesse James
20:42He would have been invented
20:43As far as I know, they never robbed an individual
20:46The only thing they robbed is banks and trains
20:48I can't...
20:53I've never been ashamed to be in Kintone
20:58As far as that goes
20:59Well, it seems to me that anyone like Jesse James
21:03or the Younger Brothers or Dillinger
21:04The more time that passes
21:06They become more folk heroes
21:09And people like to talk about them
21:11Especially in Missouri in the border states
21:13Where all this happened during the Civil War
21:14And I think that Jesse James
21:17To become a legend
21:18Died at the right time
21:19Both men are now dead
21:21Who knows if the true Jesse James
21:24Is buried in the plot
21:25In Kearney, Missouri
21:27Coming up next
21:35In Search of Investigates
21:36The claim that Butch Cassidy
21:38Was not killed with the Sundance Kid in Bolivia
21:41And lived until 1937
21:43Then agents confront a Chicago madam
21:46On FBI, The Untold Stories
21:48And later tonight
21:49On Histories Lost and Found
21:51Louis Armstrong's personal recordings
21:53And George Washington's school books
21:55At 8 here on the History Channel
21:57Where the past comes alive
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