Oct. 21, 1861
Claiborne Fox Jackson meets with members of the Missouri legislature in Neosho. The group will pass an act of secession, ratify the Confederate constitution and make an alliance treaty with the Confederacy. Just one problem: Although Jackson was the duly elected governor of Missouri and the legislators also had been elected, many the previous year, they had been ousted by a state convention and replaced by Union appointees. Jackson hoped to establish new government headquarters in Neosho and had the foresight to bring along the state seal and official records after he was forced out of Jefferson City.
The government in exile eventually will be moved to Camden, Arkansas, and then to Marshall, Texas.
Oct. 18, 1862
An incident that will quickly become known as the “Palmyra massacre” comes to its brutal conclusion in northeast Missouri when 10 Confederate soldiers are executed by a Union squad. The story began when Confederate troops captured and held an elderly man, Andrew Allsman. In response, on Oct. 8 the Federal commander issued an order stating that if Allsman was not released within l0 days, 10 Rebel prisoners would be shot. The episode is often used to illustrate the range of violence and deep feelings held by Missourians during this time period.
Oct. 7, 1864
Union Sgt. Tom Goodman, a prisoner of Bloody Bill Anderson, manages to escape as the bushwhackers are crossing the Missouri River downstream of Rocheport. He makes his way to a Federal encampment at Fayette. On Oct. 13 he arrives by train at St. Joseph where he gives a newspaper interview about his ordeal. The next day he returns to his home in Hawleyville, Iowa. In 1868 his book, “A Thrilling Record,” is published. It is a first-person account of his 10 days as a guerrilla prisoner, including what he described as the “inhuman massacre at Centralia.”
Oct. 9, 1864
Confederate guerrilla chieftan George Todd and 108 raiders arrive in the Otterville area in advance of Gen. Sterling Price’s army. The Rebels had already destroyed 10 railroad bridges on Price’s orders but Todd’s men did not succeed in burning the Lamine River bridge just east of Otterville. Gen. Joe Shelby's men would finish that job within a week. And nearly 12 years later, the James-Younger gang would rob a Missouri-Pacific train on the same site.
Oct. 24, 1864
The Union commander at St. Joseph, Brig. Gen. James Craig, selects Major Samuel P. “Cob” Cox, who lives near Gallatin, to eliminate Bloody Bill Anderson. Cox is a veteran of the Mexican War. He has studied guerrilla methods and was successful against them in Cameron three months earlier.
Oct. 26, 1864
Cob Cox and his men from the Missouri militia track Bloody Bill to the Albany area, near the present site of Orrick, in southeastern Ray County. Using guerrilla tactics, the experienced Union horsemen lure the Rebels into a trap and Anderson is one of five killed. His body is taken to Richmond where soon-to-be-famous photographs are taken by a local dentist.
Oct. 27, 1876
The Liberty Tribune pays tribute to the family of Clell Miller who was killed in September during the ill-fated Northfield bank robbery. “It is sufficient to say that there are no better people than Moses W. Miller and his wife, father and mother. If their son has been unfortunate, it was not from a want of proper parental training. Mr. Miller and family have the sympathy of all who know them.”
Oct. 27, 1876
The Liberty Tribune and Kansas City Times note that “Mrs. Z Samuels (sic), mother of the James boys, has started to Texas to make her permanent home.”
Oct. 8, 1879
A Chicago & Alton train is stopped and robbed by bandits near the Jackson County village of Glendale. Estimates of the loss range from $6,000 to $50,000. This apparently is the first robbery committed by the new James gang. On their “usual suspects” list, historians will include Jesse James, Wood Hite, Ed Miller, Bill Ryan, Tucker Basham and Dick Liddil but not necessarily Frank James. The robbery takes place just three months after the birth of Jesse’s daughter Mary.
Oct. 5, 1881
Bill Ryan, admitted member of the James gang, is sentenced to 25 years in prison for his part in the 1879 Glendale train robbery. He was arrested in Tennessee, using the “Tom Hill” alias, and returned to Jackson County for trial. He was described as being 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing 135 pounds.
Oct. 4, 1882
Frank James boards a Missouri Pacific train in Independence. He is headed for Jefferson City where he will surrender to Gov. T. T. Crittenden the following day. At Sedalia, newspaperman John Newman Edwards, who has arranged the surrender, joins his old friend for the remainder of the journey. They will check into the McCarty House in Jefferson City and Frank will register as B. F. Winfrey.
Oct. 5, 1882
After a walking tour of the state capital, Frank James and Edwards enter the governor’s office for a well-staged and dramatic surrender. The witnessing crowd includes newspapermen from all over Missouri and state officials who had been invited by Gov. Crittenden for “an important announcement.” The press accounts describe Frank James, 39, as being “gaunt” and “mustachioed”, standing 5-feet 11-inches and weighing about 145 pounds.
Oct. 6, 1882
Frank James returns to Independence, Mo. The train trip back from Jefferson City is interrupted with frequent stops along the way as Frank greets well-wishers. In Independence there are emotional reunions with his wife, four-year-old son and mother. Frank registers his family at a hotel, attends a reception with friends and then is taken to the Independence jail. He will spend 112 days there in amazing comfort, with cigars, carpeting, music, food delicacies and flowers before being transferred to Gallatin in January. The jail ledger indicates that the bill for Frank’s board and room amounted to $47. 90. That was 45 cents per day from Oct. 6 – Dec. 31, 1882 and 35 cents daily from Jan. 1 – 25, 1883.
At the same time Frank is surrendering in Missouri, the Ford brothers are in New York attracting large crowds at Bunnell’s Dime Museum. Bob gives a shooting exhibition and he and Charley earn about $500 a week. The tour also will take them to Chicago and Cincinnati.
Oct. 12, 1888
A front-page story in the Liberty Tribune notes the similarities and differences between Zerelda Samuel and her houseguest Mrs. Caroline Quantrill. The two women are only two years apart in age, both married at 18 and both had deceased sons who were notorious. Zerelda “is more portly now than ever before, weighing 218 pounds…She towered above her companion and looked twice as large... Her steel-gray eyes are still brilliant, and the movements of her portly figure are still graceful.”
Mrs. Quantrill is described as being about five-feet tall and weighing 165 pounds. “Age is bending her form and she walks in short steps. Her eyes are dark blue and the features of her face are regular and well formed. ” The two women met at a reunion of Quantrill’s raiders in Blue Springs.
Oct. 1, 1897
The Liberty Tribune reports on Frank James’ visit to the Centralia battle site.
Oct. 11, 1898
Jesse Edwards James, 23, is arrested in connection with the recent Missouri Pacific train robbery at Leeds, near Kansas City. He operates a cigar store at the Jackson County Court House.
Oct. 15,1902
Jim Younger, 54, commits suicide in Minnesota. His body will be returned to Lee’s Summit for burial. Just four months later, his surviving brother Cole will be granted a conditional pardon and allowed to return to Missouri. The Younger brothers, who had been serving life sentences for their roles in the Northfield bank robbery, were paroled in 1901, but they had not been allowed to leave the state.
Oct.15, 1912
The day after former President Theodore Roosevelt is shot, Frank James, a lifelong Democrat, writes to him offering to be the 100th man in his guard unit. Roosevelt, a former Republican, had been campaigning for the Presidency as a third-party candidate. He was in Milwaukee giving a speech when he was wounded in the chest. Reporters noted that TR continued his talk for an hour and a half before seeking medical attention. Frank’s offer received a polite thanks-but-no-thanks response from Roosevelt’s secretary. It was written in Chicago’s Mercy Hospital and included the assurances that Roosevelt was “feeling as hearty as a Bull Moose.”
Oct. 25, 1927
Allen Parmer, 79, widower of Susan James, dies at the home of friends in Wichita Falls, Tx. He had become a Confederate guerrilla at the age of 14, rode with Quantrill to Lawrence, was with Bloody Bill Anderson in the 1864 rout at Centralia and at the end of the war was one of the men who accompanied Quantrill on his last campaign in Kentucky. He married Susan James in 1870 and they settled and prospered in Texas. After her death in 1889, Parmer married his former housekeeper. In the 1860s, he had been implicated in various robberies but was released for lack of evidence. Allen and his second wife, who would raise Susan’s children, would also become very close to Annie James after Frank’s death.
Oct. 1,1936
A bronze tablet, mounted on a two-ton block of native stone,is dedicated as a memorial to the Battle of Fredericksburg which took place in 1864 on the site of the present Excelsior Springs Golf Course.
Oct. 21,1991
A four-pound fragment of the famed 1875 Pinkerton “bomb,” that disappeared from the James farm in 1975, has been returned under mysterious circumstances. In 1978, shortly before Clay County acquired the site, the metal fragment was among several items listed as missing from the home. At one time it had been on display in the old kitchen.
Oct. 24, 1992
Relics and remains of William Clarke Quantrill, who died in Kentucky June 6, 1865 from a gunshot wound, are buried in the Confederate Cemetery in Higginsville, Mo. These remains had previously been housed at the Kansas State Historical Society. About 600 folks, many in period costume, attended the ceremony that included a Confederate re-enactors honor guard and a Catholic service. (Quantrill had converted to Catholicism on his deathbed.)
Oct. 30, 1992
Quantrill’s skull, enclosed in a small casket, is buried in his hometown of Dover, Ohio. Only 22 spectators attend.
Oct. 28, 1995
Jesse Jame’s third funeral is held at the Knights of Columbus Hall north of Kearney. Some 600 people, including Jean Carnahan, wife of the Missouri governor, family members and re-enactors crowd into the building to take part in the service. The program includes sermons, prayers and the singing of Jesse’s favorite hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” A horse-drawn hearse then carries Jesse’s remains to the Mt. Olivet Cemetery for re-burial. The remains had been exhumed months earlier for DNA testing and forensic analysis. William Jewell College declined to participate in any of the events because of the Confederate flag issue.
Oct. 28, 2003
A History Channel documentary debunks the claim that Jerry Miah James of Neodesha, Ks. was the “real” Jesse James. Jerry Miah’s remains were exhumed in May and compared with DNA samples taken from descendents of Susan James. No link was found.
