July 17, 1818
Robert Sallee James is born in Logan County, KY. His father is John William James, a farmer and Baptist minister, and his mother is the former Mary (Polly) Poor. He is their fifth child. He will be orphaned when he is nine and will be raised by his oldest sister, Mary, and her husband, John Mimms.
July 31, 1837
William Clarke Quantrill is born in Canal Dover, Ohio, to Thomas Henry Quantrill, a tinker by trade, and his wife Caroline Cornelia Clarke.
July 19, 1845
Robert James, second son of Rev. Robert and Zerelda James, is born in Clay County, Mo. He will live only a few days. Survivors include his two-year-old brother, Alexander Franklin.
July 21, 1845
Zerelda Mimms is born to John W. and Mary Mimms. Her mother is the sister of Rev. Robert James and she is named after his wife.
July 14, 1850
Rev. Robert James arrives in Hangtown, California, three months after leaving his Clay County, Mo. home. His brother, Drury James, had gone to the gold fields earlier. During the long journey the Reverend wrote affectionate letters to his wife, telling her of his mission to minister to the miners and urging her to raise their three children, Frank, Jesse and Susan, to lead Christian lives.
July 5, 1861
Union forces led by Col. Franz Sigel face off against Gov. Claiborne F. Jackson’s Missouri State Guard in Carthage, population 500. The battle, which makes newspaper headlines across the country, is described as the first serious conflict between U.S. and Confederate troops. The hungry, poorly armed Guards had no uniforms and many carried their own shotguns and hunting rifles. But Jackson had seven artillery pieces. There were shoulder to shoulder battle lines and house to house fighting but relatively few casualties. Sigel’s “Yankee Dutch” troops were greatly outnumbered and did not prevail. On the same day, Carthage-bound Rebel reinforcements capture seven wagons loaded with Union supplies and arms. The victory gives Southern morale a great boost.
July 22, 1862
Missouri’s provisional government commands all men of military age to enroll in the state militia. The Liberty Tribune prints the orders under a headline that reads: “A Levy En Masse to Exterminate the Guerrillas in Missouri.” It is thought this order influenced young Southern supporters, including Frank James, to join the Confederate guerrillas.
July 10, 1864
A combination of Confederate soldiers and guerrillas, commanded by Col. John C. C. Thornton and Fletch Taylor, take Platte City, Mo., without firing a shot. It is generally thought that this was the day the famous daguerreotype of a baby-face Jesse James was made. Four days later the over-confident Rebel group is routed and scattered at Camden Point by Col. James Ford and the 2nd Colorado Cavalry. Meanwhile, back in Platte City, Jayhawker Charles Jennison and his 15th Cavalry Regiment burn the town.
July 15, 1864
Bill Anderson’s guerillas invade his old home-town of Huntsville, taking $40,000. This is the beginning of a three-and-a-half-month campaign through north central Missouri. It will end in Anderson’s death. Their July stops include Renick and Rocheport and various other places in Carroll, Chariton, Randolph and Shelby counties.
July 15, 1865
A very ill Jesse James is sent by riverboat from Harlem, Mo. to meet his family in Rulo, Neb. Zerelda and Reuben Samuel and their young children fled to Nebraska when Clay County became too dangerous for them toward the end of the war. Jesse had been seriously wounded two months earlier in Lexington, Mo.
July 5, 1866
Jim Lane, former Jayhawker, Union general and U. S. senator, commits suicide near Leavenworth. He was known for his cruelty and over-zealous methods including the burning of Osceola, Mo., during the Civil War. He was ridiculed for cowardice when he ran from Lawrence during Quantrill’s raid and he was accused of corruption during his Senate years. It is said he developed mental problems after his career was ruined. He is buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence.
July 21, 1873
After derailing a train near Adair, Iowa, a band of men take $2,000 from a safe and an additional $1,000 from the passengers, totally missing the multi-ton shipment of bullion that was on board. Engineer John Rafferty is killed when the engine overturns in a ditch. It is thought that the outlaws included Frank and Jesse, four Younger brothers, Clell Miller, Bill Chadwell and Charlie Pitts.
July 10, 1875
The Nashville Republican Banner prints a Jesse James letter presumably mailed five days earlier in Raytown, Mo. The writer denounces the Pinkerton raid at the James-Samuel home and claims to have been in Missouri since March. He offers alibis and denials for several robberies and then thanks Dr. Paul Eve, Nashville surgeon, for treating his lung wound years earlier.
July 7, 1876
A Missouri Pacific train is robbed during the night at Rocky Cut in Cooper County, Mo., near Otterville, a few miles east of Sedalia. More than $15,000 is taken from safes owned by two express companies. Bruce Younger, uncle of the famous brothers, and Hobbs Kerry are arrested. Younger is released when he provides an alibi but Kerry confesses and names the James brothers, Bob and Cole Younger, Bill Chadwell (William Stiles), Clell Miller and Charlie Pitts (Samuel Wells) as his accomplices. This will be the last successful robbery of the James-Younger gang. They will soon be on their way to Minnesota.Story , front page, side by side with Custers death.
July 20, 1876
Miss Christine Peabody, a school teacher from Jefferson City, gives a light-hearted first hand account of the Otterville train robbery in an interview picked up by several Missouri newspapers.
She describes passengers frantically trying to hide their valuables as a “sanctimonious-looking individual, evidently scared almost out of his wits, broke forth with ‘I’m going home to die no more.’” She said the episode was “rare fun” looking back at it but not funny at the time.
July 7, 1879
George Caleb Bingham, prominent Missouri artist, dies of cholera. Although a fervent Union supporter during the Civil War, he pursued a vendetta against Union Gen. Thomas Ewing. With his painting “Order No. 11”, Bingham depicted the brutal consequences of Ewing’s infamous 1863 order. Bingham later distributed letters, pamphlets and reproductions of the painting in an effort to destroy Ewing’s postwar political campaigns in Ohio. At the time of the 1875 Pinkerton attack on the James-Samuel farm, Bingham was serving as Missouri adjutant general. He was appointed by the governor to investigate the raid and explosion that claimed the life of young Archie Samuel and seriously injured his mother.
July 26, 1879
If the fabled meeting between Jesse James and Billy the Kid actually happened, it may have been on this date at a health spa near Las Vegas, New Mexico. Some researchers believe that Jesse was there visiting friends and taking advantage of the hot springs, while William Bonney was there to gamble and celebrate the arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad.
Two years after Jesse’s death Bob Ford and Dick Liddil bought a saloon in Las Vegas.
The business venture apparently did not last long. Ford sold out to Liddil and ended up in Creede, Colorado.
July 15, 1881
A northbound train out of Kansas City is stopped by bandits near Winston in Daviess County. The safe is robbed, conductor William Westfall is fatally shot at point blank range and passenger Frank McMillan is killed. Dick Liddil later confesses and names Clarence and Wood Hite as participants in the crime. He also states Jesse James murdered Westfall and that Frank shot McMillan.
July 22, 1881
From the Liberty Tribune: “Mrs. Dr. Samuel, mother of the James boys, was in K. C. Tuesday and positively denies that her sons were in the Winston train robbery. She says her sons are both dead.
July 25, 1881
Physician and former Union Gen. James G. Blunt dies in a Washington D. C. insane asylum where he had been confined since 1879. His body is shipped to Leavenworth for burial. He was one of the organizers of a company of scouts formed to patrol the Kansas –Missouri border in early 1862. They became known as “Redlegs” because of their leather leggings. In 1863, near Baxter Springs, Kansas, Blunt escaped as Quantrill’s raiders slaughtered his 100-man guard.
July 28, 1881
Missouri Gov. Thomas Crittenden announces rewards for Frank and Jesse James--$5,000 each for their capture and $5,000 each for their conviction. The money is to be put up by railroad and express companies operating in the state.
July 14, 1892
Ed (Red) O’Kelley is sentenced to life in prison for the June killing of Bob Ford in Creede, Co. The ruling also said that O’Kelley would spend 10 days of each year in the dungeon. He was released after 10 years. The state board cited his poor health, good behavior and the belief that he had served enough time for the crime he committed.
July 10, 1901
Cole and Jim Younger are paroled from the Stillwater, Mn. penitentiary after serving 25 years. Their brother, Bob, died of tuberculosis in the same prison in 1889. The three pleaded guilty in 1876 for their involvement in the failed Northfield bank robbery during which a teller, an onlooker and eventually three bandits were killed. Only Frank and Jesse escaped. The Youngers’ parole did not restore their legal rights. They were not permitted to leave Minnesota so they worked selling monuments while friends continued to seek pardons for them.
July 16, 1903
Dot Ford, widow of the man who killed Jesse James, commits suicide. She had been with Bob Ford when he opened his Creede saloon and it is reported that she was in charge of the dance hall girls on the second floor. She left town shortly after Bob’s murder in 1892 but returned a few years later after raising enough money to return his body to Richmond, Mo. for reburial.
July 11, 1930
Asle Sorbel, not exactly a well-known name, dies in South Dakota. His death notice reveals, possibly for the first time in print, that he was the teenager who alerted officials of the whereabouts of the fleeing Younger brothers, two weeks after the Northfield debacle. In 1876 his Norwegian-born parents were farming near Madelia, Minnesota, about 65 miles from Northfield. Young Asle was suspicous of two very grubby men who visited his home looking for food. He wanted to ride immediately and notify the sheriff but his father insisted he had to milk the cows. Asle milked one cow, then rode to Madelia where the sheriff and townspeople quickly responded to his alarm. The ensuing gun battle, six miles west of town near Hanska Lake, resulted in the surrender and capture of all three Younger brothers and the death of Charlie Pitts (Sam Wells.) The youth shared in the reward money and went on to become a veterinarian. In all newspaper reports of the Younger brothers surrender, Asle Sorbel’s real name was never used to protect him from possible reprisal.
July 31, 1938
T.T. Crittenden Jr., friend and mentor to Jesse Edwards James, dies at 74. He was the son of the Missouri governor who in 1881 put together huge rewards for Frank and Jesse. He also served as mayor of Kansas City, 1908-1910, and was remembered for initiating the building of Union Station. According to his obituary, he also built free bath houses at Holmes Park, put electric lights in the work house and provided free medical care for children.
July 6, 1944
Anna Ralston James, widow of Frank James, dies at age 91. After her husband’s death in 1915, she became reclusive, avoiding publicity and refusing interviews. Both Annie and Frank were cremated, nearly 30 years apart, and they were buried together in Hill Park Cemetery in Independence.
July 16, 1979
Jesse James had head lice, Type A blood and a serious illness at age 5, according to Milt Perry, superintendent of Clay County Historic Sites. The St. Joseph Gazette reports that the findings were revealed in lab reports on material found in Jesse’s original grave site.
Among the items found during the 1978 excavation were a boot heel, a button, parts of the casket, a .38 caliber bullet, a tooth and bits of bone.
July 4-6, 1980
The public is invited to an “exploration” at the James Farm. Artifacts from Jesse’s original grave site will be on display. Dirt taken from underneath the cabin will be sifted and the dig from the site of the original barn will be open to spectators.
