Jesse James

Jesse James is Paula’s 6th cousin, three time removed. Three generations up and six collateral lines over. Distant, but still kin.  In years past we have visited places associated with Jesse in Arkansas, places that he visited and hung out with family and friends.  We felt it was important to visit the home that he had with his wife Zerelda and his children in later years, when he lived in St. Joseph, Missouri under the name of Thomas Howard.

We found his house without much trouble.

Admission was $4 each, and the Four-room house is filled with period furniture and displays.  James was married to his first cousin, Zerelda Mimms, who survived him by eighteen years.

The story is that the “dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard” in April 1882, was one of the last two members of the James Gang, Robert Ford, who hoped to collect the $5,000 reward offered by the Missouri Governor Crittenden.  While Jesse was standing on a chair to straighten a picture, Ford drew his gun and shot Jesse in the head.

The living room in which Jesse was shot includes a purported hole in the wall, since enlarged by gawkers and souvenir seekers.  There has been some controversy about the hole, since there was conflicting testimony whether there was an exit wound, but circumstances might suggest that Ford’s .44 pistol was fired at 3-4 feet range at his head, and would probably have exited.  James was buried at the Samuels-James Family farm near Kearney MO, but was later moved to Mt. Olivet cemetery in Kearney with his wife, Zerelda.  They occupy space in the Samuels plot and are flanked by Reuben and Zerelda Samuel.

Due to stories and rumors that Jesse had faked his death and lived out his life elsewhere, a forensic pathologist was successful in getting the remains exhumed in 1995, and by tracing mitochondrial DNA from known later collateral relatives and descendants, confirmed that the remains were indeed those of Jesse James.  A case in the house displays other artifacts recovered in the exhumation, including coffin handles, shards of the coffin viewing glass panel, his tie pin, and a bullet from his right lung from an earlier shoot-out. No trace of the bullet to his head was found.

Incidentally, for his actions, Robert Ford was later tried, convicted, sentenced to hang, and pardoned by the Governor all in the course of one day, and was murdered by a fellow gang member a couple of years later.