Please welcome back Earl Staggs with
his latest guest post...
When
I look at the past, I find stories about people which fascinate me,
particularly those in which there is a curious mixture of fact, legend, and
mysterious uncertainty. In this series
of articles, I want to explore some of those stories. I think of them as mysteries swaddled in
legend. While truth is always desired in
most things, truth easily becomes staid and boring. Legend, on the other hand,
forever holds a hint of romanticism and an aura of excitement borne of
adventure, imagination and, of course, mystery.
Frank – The Other
James by Earl Staggs
Frank
James lived most of his life in the shadow of his younger brother, Jesse,
throughout their long career of robbing banks and trains. I’ve
often wondered about the relationship between the two brothers. They were quite different in nature.
 | |
| Jesse age 25 (left) and Frank age 29 (right) in 1872 |
Jesse was reckless and flashy and enjoyed the attention
and notoriety he gained as a criminal. His
nature well-suited him to a life of crime and leading a gang of outlaws. Frank, on
the other hand, was shy and studious and seemed out of place in a group specializing in robbery and
killing. As a young
man, Frank showed interest in his father’s sizable library with a particular
interest in the writing of William Shakespeare.
He attended school regularly, got
good grades, and wanted to become a teacher someday.
Why did Frank follow Jesse all those
years in a criminal career when he seemed more suited to being a writer or a
teacher? I think it’s possible Frank
took his big brother status very seriously.
I think he rode in Jesse’s gang out of a sense of responsibility to
protect his younger sibling. That’s my
theory, and certain things in Frank’s life support it.
He
was born Alexander Franklin James on January
10, 1843, in Clay County, Missouri, to Baptist Minister Robert James and
Zerelda Cole James. Jesse came into the family four and a half years
later.
Frank was eighteen when the Civil War began. Since his family lived in an area strongly committed
to the Confederate cause, he joined a Missouri militia group to help the
Confederate Army fight Union troops.
After a battle in Lexington, Missouri, the Confederates retreated. Frank became ill and was left behind. He surrendered to the Union army, was paroled,
and returned home.
Frank
was not finished as a guerrilla fighter, however. Diehard Southern sympathizers were not ready
to give up their fight. He eventually rode
with a band led by William Quantrill, and the following year, sixteen-year-old
Jesse followed. After Quantrill was killed in 1865, Jesse and
Frank teamed up with the Younger brothers to form an outlaw gang and spent the next few years specializing in
bank and train robberies.
In
1875, the Pinkertons closed in on the gang and Frank and Jesse barely
escaped. They fled to Tennessee, assumed
new identities, and lived quietly. Frank
married and settled down to life as a farmer.
Frank would later say those years “were the
happiest I have spent since my boyhood. My old life grew more detestable the
further I got from it." That
certainly fits a man who wanted a peaceful life rather than life on the other
side of the law. That leads me to
believe his heart was never in being an outlaw but one who only rode the
criminal trail to keep a watchful eye over his kid brother.
With Jesse inactive, Frank was perfectly happy being
a farmer. When he heard he
and Jesse might receive amnesty for their crimes, he wanted to surrender. Jesse talked him out of it. By then, Jesse had grown bored with civilian
life and wanted to return to the excitement and adventure of robbing banks. He convinced Frank to join him and once again,
the James brothers were on the outlaw trail.
Jesse was robbing banks and trains again for the notoriety and attention
he received as a famous criminal. I
believe Frank once again gave up the kind of life he really wanted and went
along to protect Jesse.
On April 3,
1882, Jesse was killed by Robert Ford, a member of his gang, for the $10,000 reward
on Jesse’s life.
Frank did not go
looking for Ford to exact revenge as Wyatt Earp did in the aftermath of that
incident at the OK Corral. Nor did he
take over the gang and continue robbing.
Not long after Jesse’s death, he surrendered to the Governor of Missouri
and handed over his gun with this statement:
“'I have been hunted for twenty-one
years, have literally lived in the saddle, have never known a day of perfect
peace. It was one long, anxious, inexorable, eternal vigil.” I think the “vigil” he referred to was
protecting his brother.
Frank was tried twice and found not guilty
by a jury both times. He was finally
free of the criminal charges hanging over his head. He was also free of his responsibility to
keep his younger sibling safe. With
Jesse gone, Frank never turned to crime again.
For the last
thirty years of his life, Frank James, one of the most feared outlaws of the
old west, moved around and worked a variety of jobs. He was a burlesque theater ticket taker in
St. Louis, a
telegraph operator in St. Joseph, a betting commissioner at a race track in New
Orleans, and a shoe salesman in Dallas.
For a time, he and his former gang member Cole Younger created
"The Great Cole Younger and Frank James Historical Wild West" show.
After his
mother died in 1911, Frank returned
to the family farm in Clay County, Missouri, where he guided tourists around
the place for the sum of 50 cents.[5] He died there on February 18, 1915, at
the age of 72.
Frank James
devoted many of his early years fulfilling the inborn obligation to look after
his kid brother. After Jesse died, that
obligation no longer existed, and he was finally able to live the kind of life
he really wanted.
At least,
that’s my theory. What do you think?
Earl Staggs ©2015
Earl Staggs earned a long list of Five Star reviews
for his novels MEMORY OF A MURDER and JUSTIFIED ACTION and has twice
received a Derringer Award for Best Short Story of the Year. He served as Managing
Editor of Futures Mystery Magazine, as President of the Short Mystery Fiction
Society, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and
seminars.
Email: earlstaggs@sbcglobal.net
Website: http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com
Posts
10 comments:
Another interesting installment in the series, Earl. Jesse James was obviously a psychopath. Your assessment of Frank 'watching over' his little brother seems valid. Jesse's nature just wouldn't let him stay out of trouble.
I can understand the idea of Frank wanting to watch over Jesse but I wonder if also Jesse had a dominating, charismatic personality that overwhelmed Frank. It sounds like there were no other children in the family, just the two boys, and they were close enough to feel their lives were bound together. Still, most of this information about the James brothers was new to me. Fascinating stuff.
Glad you enjoyed this one, John. You're probably right about Jesse being a psychopath. Like many career criminals, he probably thought he was invincible. But then, he turned his back on the wrong person.
Susan, you could be right about Jesse's personality. Historians say Zerelda, their mother, was an imposing and domineering type. She had four children by her first husband and four more with her third. As far as we know, none of the other siblings turned to crime. It's interesting that in 1875, the Pinkertons surrounded the farmhouse in their search for Frank and Jesse. The boys weren't there, but when the Pinkertons tossed a bomb into the house, Zerelda lost an arm in the explosion. She was a tough old gal, though, and that hardly slowed her down a bit. She passed away from natural causes in 1911.
Is Frank on the right in the picture? Thanks for the great history lesson! History is so much fun when you're not in high school any more.
My dumb, Kaye. I forgot the caption under the picture. Yes, Frank is the taller one on the right. The picture is from 1872 when Frank was 29 and Jesse 25. And I agree about high school history books. They leave out a lot of the interesting stuff.
Fascinating post, Earl. We often forget to look around at peripheral characters when researching history. You have a knack for seeking out what others miss. Thank you for sharing a story that I have to agree with. You made some excellent points.
Marja McGraw
Thank you, Marja. We need to remember that people who came before us are not just names in a book or pictures on a wall. They were real people with feelings and problems just like us. They had to deal with life as it came and make the best of it just as we do now. Of course, they didn't have cell phones and ebooks to make life easier.
Fascinating--especially since my grandfather Trees owned a general store, first in Yukon, then in Tulsa, OK in the late 1800's and very early in the 1900's. He used to tell tales of "outlaws" shopping in his store, including one he identified as Frank James at one time. Long list of others. No difficulties, they just shopped. Another story, unrelated, was about how women complained when the sawdust covering his floors wasn't kept clean so it would help keep the bottom of their skirts clean. (Sawdust?) Unfortunately I didn't ask enough questions back then. I was just a kid, remember?
Frank was certainly in that area at that time, Radine, and probably one or two of the Younger brothers, too. It's hard to imagine women wearing skirts long enough to touch the floor. If only we'd been smart enough as kids to take notes. Best wishes to you and John.
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