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1 Chapter 1 : Jamesâ Younger Gang - Wikipedia Jesse Woodson James (September 5, - April 3, ) was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla, and leader of the James-Younger theinnatdunvilla.com in the "Little Dixie" area of western Missouri, James and his family maintained strong Southern sympathies. Visit Website After escaping the scene, the robbers hid out for several days in a nearby farmhouse, where they celebrated by playing Monopoly with their two-and-a-half tons of stolen cash. Spooked by the high police presence in the area, the men eventually divided the loot and split up. Twelve of the gang members were eventually arrested and sentenced to a total of years in prison. The Great Gold Robbery of Most train robberies are high profile crimes committed by armed bandits, but the Great Gold Robbery was the railway equivalent of a cat burglary. The heist was discovered in May in Paris, when authorities found that the gold in four lock boxes shipped from London had been partially replaced with lead shot. The boxes had been kept in double-locked safes and showed no signs of having been tampered with. As police would later learn, the crime was a carefully planned inside job. Working with a stationmaster and a train guard, masterminds Edward Agar and William Pierce had obtained wax imprints of the safe keys and painstakingly made copies. On the night of the robbery, the men disguised themselves as gentlemen and boarded the train in London carrying luggage filled with lead. Once in transit, Agar and Pierce stowed away in the baggage car and used their copied keys to open the safes. After switching the gold with their dummy lead weights, they resealed the boxes and disguised the loot in their luggage before exiting the train in Dover. The heist would have been the perfect crime, but Agar later confessed to authorities after he was arrested for a separate offense. Police rounded up his accomplices shortly thereafter. The holdup was the work of the Hindustan Republican Association, a band of militant revolutionaries who sought to free India from British colonial rule. The HRA often resorted to robbery to fund their rebellion, and on August 9,, they set their sights on a British train operating in what is now Uttar Pradesh. As the train neared the town of Kakori, ten armed revolutionaries led by Ram Prasad Bismil overpowered the guards, hijacked the locomotive and brought all the cars to a screeching halt. All ten of the revolutionaries escaped without injury, but in the chaos of the heist one passenger was killed in an accidental shooting. The men eluded capture for over a month, but by September the train robbers had been arrested along with around 30 other revolutionaries. Bismil and three other men were later executed by hanging in The caper came on the night of June 12, Working on a tip from a crooked postal inspector, two of the Newton brothers boarded a mail train on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. After pulling guns on the engineer, the men forced the train to stop near Rondout, Illinois, where the rest of the gang waited with a small fleet of cars. The gang escaped in their cars, but in the confusion of the robbery an accomplice accidentally shot one of the Newton brothers several times. The thieves were later arrested after they tried to get medical assistance in Chicago. The raid began in the early morning of June 2, when several Wild Bunch members flagged down the first part of a two-section train operated by the Union Pacific Railroad. After the locomotive came to a halt, two masked men boarded it and ordered the engineer to cross a nearby bridge. As soon as the last car cleared the gap, the bandits dynamited the bridge, stranding the approaching second train on the other side. When the men refused, the robbers simply the blew the doors off with sticks of dynamite, pushed aside the dazed inhabitants, and then used even more explosives to crack open a safe. Page 1

2 Chapter 2 : Jesse James and the First Missouri Train Robbery: Ronald Beights: theinnatdunvilla.com: Book With nothing more than some rope, some guns and a whole lot of gumption, Jesse James committed the first train robbery in the west years ago today. James' posse, the James and Younger gang. In fact, the slain cashier turned out not to be Cox. After the deadly heist, an influential pro-confederate newspaper editor in Missouri, John Newman Edwards, befriended Jesse and went on to promote the former bushwhacker as a hero and defiant Southern patriot of the Reconstruction era. James himself wrote letters to newspapers in which he defended his actions. Through his articles and editorials, Edwards was responsible for helping to create the image of Jesse James as a Robin Hood figure who robbed the rich to give to the poor, an image that historians say is a myth. James and his cohorts eluded the Pinkertons. Catching the James brothers became a personal mission for Allan Pinkerton, an abolitionist who had aided slaves on the Underground Railroad, uncovered a plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln and gathered military intelligence for the federal government during the Civil War. Following the raid, public support for Jesse and Frank increased, and the Missouri state legislature even came close to passing a bill offering the men amnesty. Allan Pinkerton never pursued his hunt for Jesse and Frank any further. His gang was defeated trying to rob a Minnesota bank. The gang targeted the bank after learning that Adelbert Ames, a former Union general and Republican governor of Reconstruction-era Mississippi, had recently moved to Northfield. During the attempted robbery, three members of the gang went inside and demanded the cashier open the safe, but he refused. In the end, the bank cashier was killed by the outlaws as was a passerby, while two bandits were shot to death by townsfolk before the rest of the gang fled. Two weeks later, following a gunfight near Madelia, Minnesota, the Younger brothers were captured and another gang member was killed. Afterward, the Youngers were sentenced to life in prison; Robert Younger died behind bars in, while his siblings were paroled in The James brothers, who had split off from the Youngers before the Madelia gunfight and were the only gang members not caught or killed following the failed robbery, laid low for the next few years, living in Tennessee under assumed names. However, in, Jesse recruited a new set of criminal associates and embarked on a fresh crime spree. James was murdered at Joseph, Missouri, on April 3, His wife and two children were in another room at the time. Earlier that year, Bob Ford had arranged with the governor of Missouri to take down Jesse in exchange for a reward. Charley Ford committed suicide in while Bob Ford was shot to death in in a Creede, Colorado, saloon. His remains were exhumed. Over the years, several different men claimed to be Jesse James. Olivet Cemetery in Kearney, Missouri; the remains had been transferred there in from the original burial site on the James family farm. After conducting DNA testing, the researchers concluded the exhumed remains were almost certainly those of the 19th century outlaw. Page 2

3 Chapter 3 : 7 Things You May Not Know About Jesse James - HISTORY After tiring of robbing banks, Jesse James and his gang turned their attention to trains which usually carried large shipments of money. Origins[ edit ] From the beginning of the American Civil War, the state of Missouri had chosen not to secede from the Union but not to fight for it or against it either: Missouri, however, had been the scene of much of the agitation about slavery leading up to the outbreak of the war, and was home to dedicated partisans from both sides. In the mids, local Unionists and Secessionists had begun to battle each other throughout the state, and by the end of, guerrilla warfare erupted between Confederate partisans known as " bushwhackers " and the more organized Union forces. Still, pro-confederate guerrillas resisted; by early, the Unionist provisional government mobilized a state militia to fight the increasingly organized and deadly partisans. This conflict fought largely, though not exclusively, between Missourians themselves raged until after the fall of Richmond and the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, costing thousands of lives and devastating broad swathes of the Missouri countryside. The conflict rapidly escalated into a succession of atrocities committed by both sides. Union troops often executed or tortured suspects without trial and burned the homes of suspected guerrillas and those suspected of aiding or harboring them. Where credentials were suspect, the accused guerrilla was often executed, as in the case of Lt. Frisby McCullough after the Battle of Kirksville. Bushwhackers, meanwhile, frequently went house to house, executing Unionist farmers. The James and Younger brothers belonged to slave-owning families from an area known as " Little Dixie " in western Missouri with strong ties to the South. Jesse James began his guerrilla career in, at the age of sixteen, fighting alongside Frank under the leadership of Archie Clement and "Bloody Bill" Anderson. When Cole Younger returned from a mission to California, he learned that Quantrill and Anderson had both been killed. The James brothers, however, continued to associate with their old guerrilla comrades, who remained together under the leadership of Archie Clement. It was likely Clement who, amid the tumult of Reconstruction in Missouri, turned the guerrillas into outlaws. The James brothers are believed to have been involved. Clement was also linked to violence and intimidation against officials of the Republican government that now held power in the state. On election day, Clement led his men into Lexington, where they drove Republican voters away from the polls, thereby securing a Republican defeat. A detachment of state militiamen was dispatched to the town. They convinced the bushwhackers to disperse, then attempted to capture Clement, who still had a price on his head. Clement refused to surrender and was shot down in a wild gunfight on the streets of Lexington. Despite the death of Clement, his old followers remained together, and robbed a bank across the Missouri River from Lexington in Richmond, Missouri, on May 22,, in which the town mayor and two lawmen were killed. In the aftermath of the two raids, however, the more senior bushwhackers were killed, captured or simply left the group. This set the stage for the emergence of the James and Younger brothers, and the transformation of the old crew into the Jamesâ Younger Gang. John Jarrett and Arthur McCoy were mentioned in numerous newspaper accounts, so they were likely active in gang activities up to Sheets, in the mistaken belief that he was Samuel P. The James brothers were unknown up to this point; this may have been their first robbery. The original farmhouse is on the left and an addition on the right was expanded after Jesse James died. Across a creek and up a hill on the right was the home of Daniel Askew who was killed at home on April 12, Askew was suspected of cooperating with the Pinkertons in the January bombing of the house in a room on the left. The original footstone is still outside although the family has replaced the headstone. He killed two lawmen during the attempt and escaped. The bank contacted the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago, the first involvement of the famous agency in the pursuit of the Jamesâ Younger Gang. Agency founder Allan Pinkerton dispatched his son, Robert Pinkerton, who joined a county sheriff in tracking the gang to a farm in Civil Bend, Missouri. A short gunfight ended indecisively as the gang escaped. On June 24, Jesse James wrote a letter to the Kansas City Times, claiming Republicans were persecuting him for his Confederate loyalties by accusing him and Frank of carrying out the robberies. One of the outlaws shot the cashier, R. Martin, who had refused to open the safe. Cole was furious over this, because neither he nor brother John had been linked to the Page 3

4 crime before the letter. But [President Ulysses S. Genevieve Savings Association in Ste. As they rode off they fired in the air and shouted, "Hurrah for Hildebrand! Hildebrand was a famous Confederate bushwhacker from the area who had recently been shot dead in Illinois. Arthur McCoy had lived in this area and knew it quite well; he was likely involved and may have been the planner and leader. Engineer John Rafferty died in the crash. Later another suspected stage robbery took place between Malvern and Hot Springs, Arkansas. There, the gang returned a pocket watch to a Confederate veteran, saying that Northern men had driven them to outlawry and that they intended to make them pay for it. For the first of two times in all their train robberies, the outlaws robbed the passengers. In both train robberies, their usual target, the safe in the baggage car belonging to an express company, held an unusually small amount of money. On this occasion, the outlaws reportedly examined the hands of the passengers to ensure that they did not rob any working men. Many newspapers reported this was actually done by the "Arthur McCoy" gang. To correct errors, the gang telegraphed a report of the Gads Hill robbery to the St. Louis Dispatch newspaper for publication. On March 11,, John W. Whicher, the agent who was sent to investigate the James brothers, was found shot to death alongside a rural road in Jackson County, Missouri. Lull, accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Edwin B. Daniels to track the Youngers, posed as cattle buyers. On March 17,, the trio was stopped and attacked by John and Jim Younger on a rural stretch of road near Monegaw Springs, Missouri. The first agent, J. Ragsdale, was hired on April 9, On August 30, three of the gang held up a stagecoach across the Missouri River from Lexington, Missouri, in view of hundreds of onlookers on the bluffs of the town. A passenger identified two of the robbers as Frank and Jesse James. The acting governor, Charles P. Johnson, dispatched an agent selected from the St. Louis police department to investigate. William "Bud" McDaniel was captured by a Kansas City police officer after the robbery, and later was shot during an escape attempt. Frank and Jesse James had been there earlier but had already left. When the Pinkertons threw an iron incendiary device into the house, it exploded when it rolled into a blazing fireplace. On April 12,, an unknown gunman shot dead Daniel Askew, a neighbor and former Union militiaman who may have been suspected of providing the Pinkertons with a base for their raid. Allan Pinkerton then abandoned the chase for the Jamesâ Younger Gang. By September, at least part of the gang had ventured east to Huntington, West Virginia, where they robbed a bank on September 7. Two new members participated: McDaniel was killed by a posse and Webb was caught. The other two robbers, Frank and Cole, escaped. Also in, the two James brothers moved to the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee, probably to save their mother from further raids by detectives. Once there, Jesse James began to write letters to the local press, asserting his place as a Confederate hero and a martyr to Radical Republican vindictiveness. The new man, Kerry, was arrested soon after and he readily identified his accomplices. Northfield, Minnesota Raid[ edit ] Sitting left-to-right: The idea for the raid came from Jesse and Bob Younger. Cole tried to talk his brother out of the plan, but Bob refused to back down. Reluctantly, Cole agreed to go, writing to his brother Jim in California to come home. The Northfield bank was not unusually rich. Shortly after the robbery, Bob Younger declared that they had selected it because of its connection to two Union generals and Radical Republican politicians: Benjamin Butler and his son-in-law Adelbert Ames. General Ames had just stepped down as Governor of Mississippi, where he had been strongly identified with civil rights for freedmen. He had recently moved to Northfield, where his father owned the mill on the Cannon River and had a large amount of stock in the bank. One of the outlaws "had a spite" against Ames, Bob said. Cole Younger said much the same thing years later and recalled greeting "General Ames" on the street in Northfield just before the robbery. Paul, Minnesota in early September After a layover in St. Paul they divided into two groups, one going to Mankato, the other to Red Wing, on either side of Northfield. They purchased expensive horses and scouted the terrain around the towns, agreeing to meet south of Northfield along the Cannon River near Dundas on the morning of September 7, The gang attempted to rob the bank about 2: Northfield residents had seen the gang leave a local restaurant near the mill shortly after noon, where they dined on fried eggs. Local citizens soon realized a robbery was in progress and several took up arms from local hardware stores. Shooting from behind cover, they poured a deadly fire on the outlaws. During the gun battle, medical student Henry Wheeler, shooting from a third-floor window of the Dampier House Hotel across the street from the bank, killed Miller. Another civilian named A. Page 4

5 Chapter 4 : Jesse James - Wild West Originals Story's about Wild West Heroes Jesse James was a bank and train robber in the American Old West, best known as the leading member of the James-Younger gang of outlaws. Synopsis Jesse James was born on September 5,, in. July 19, Robert James Jr. However, the baby died just 33 days later. November 25, Susan Lavenia James is born. The Reverend had been asked to serve as chaplain on a wagon train heading to California during the Gold Rush. September 30, Zerelda marries Benjamin Simms, a neighboring farmer. January 2, Benjamin Simms is killed in a horse accident. September 25, Zerelda marries her third husband Dr. May 4, Frank James joins the Confederate Army at Archie Reuban Samuel is born out of wedlock by one of the slaves. The mulatto boy was raised as part of the Samuel family. August 21, William Clark Quantrill led a massacre of Lawrence, Kansas in the early morning hours. His raiders tore through the Free-State town, robbing two banks, looting other buildings before setting them on fire, and killed more than men, women, and children. Frank was a member of the Raiders and was part of the barbaric attack. There is some doubt as to whether Jesse was involved; however, he was said to have bragged about it later. Somehow, the doctor managed to survive the interrogation and torture. Twenty-four unarmed and wounded Union soldiers were dragged from the train by the frenzied ruffians and were murdered. The band of guerrillas was followed by an experienced Federal Infantry. About three miles south of Centralia, the Union forces were bushwhacked by the band and were nearly annihilated. Over federal troops were killed. Only three of the guerrilla forces were reported to have been killed in the battle. Both Frank and Jesse were part of battle. Jesse is said to have killed Union Major A. It is disputed that Frank and Jesse took part in the massacre of the unarmed Union soldiers earlier in the day. Several guerrillas are killed. Bill Anderson is killed himself and is decapitated later that day. Jesse James and a few other guerrillas escape. Quantrill is shot twice, one of which is ends up fatal when he dies in June. One of the captured guerrillas is Jim Younger, who recently joined the guerrillas. May, Jesse rode into Lexington, Missouri carrying a white flag. He was shot in the chest when he attempted to surrender by occupying Union troops. Surviving the attack, he crawled to safety. Upon their retreat from the bank a 17 year-old boy was killed. This was the first robbery of the gang and the first daytime robbery of any U. No one was injured. Though Frank and Jesse were said to have part of the robbery, other report place them out of the state at the time. Three men were shot and killed. One person was wounded but there were no fatalities. Sheets and wounding clerk William McDowell as he ran for the door. Martin in the process. One girl was shot. Genevieve Savings Bank of St. There were no injuries. January 31, Five to seven members of the gang held up the St. He plans to go to the James farm and become acquainted with Jesse and Frank; then capture them. He is advised not to do this, but attempts it anyway. The next day, his body is discovered, shot three times. The newlyweds honeymooned in Galveston, Texas. August 30, The Waverly-Lexington Omnibus Stagecoach was blamed on the James Gang ; however, there is some question as to they were actually responsible. However; the blame for this robbery seems highly unlikely, as the James-Younger Gang robbed a train in Kansas just the very next day. In an effort to lure them out, the agents tossed a smoke bomb into the house. One of their gang was shot during the robbery. Bank cashier Heyman refused to open the safe and ducked down. Angered, Jesse put a pistol to his head and shot him. The shot was heard beyond the bank and when the bank alarm began to go off the Northfield citizens opened fire upon the gang. Charley Pitts and Bill Chadwell were killed. Cole, Jim and Bob Younger were badly wounded but managed to escape. However, the were captured just two weeks later. Frank and Jesse escaped back to Missouri, unharmed. The James are recognized. When Jesse turns to straighten a picture on the wall, Bob shoots him just below the right ear, killing him instantly. His body hit the wall then fell to the floor lying on his back. Within no time at all word quickly spread throughout the town that Jesse James had just been assassinated. May 6, Charles Ford, scared to death of Frank James, has been on the run ever since his brother Bob killed Jesse. Moving constantly from town to town and changing his name several times, he finally gave up and committed suicide. Zee is buried at the Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Kearney, Missouri. Samuel was placed in an Insane Asylum in St. Joseph, Missouri where he remained until his death in March 1, Dr. Archie Rueben Samuel dies in a St. February 10, Zerelda Samuel Page 5

6 dies of a heart-attack at the age if eighty-six. She is buried at the Mt. Kastorff October 21, at 9: My great grandma was a Mims. Her great grandma was a James. The Mims and James intermarried at least two times making me a direct descendant of both. They were teenagers from well to do families who got caught up in a Civil War. People from Kansas were raiding Missouri, burning houses, stealing livestock, murdering men and women and these boys formed gangs to defend their homes and families. When the war was over, Jesse tried to surrender with a white flag and was shot. Page 6

7 Chapter 5 : Jesse James And His Gang Turn To Train Robbery World History Project 1. Jesse James' Iowa Train Robbery. Notorious outlaw Jesse James is best remembered as a bank robber, but he was also one of the first bandits to hold up a moving train. This area of Missouri was largely settled by people from the Upper South, especially Kentucky and Tennessee, and became known as Little Dixie for this reason. James had two full siblings: His father, Robert S. James, farmed commercial hemp in Kentucky and was a Baptist minister before coming to Missouri. Robert traveled to California during the Gold Rush to minister to those searching for gold; [3] he died there when James was three years old. Reuben Samuel, who moved into the James family home. Farmers raised the same crops and livestock as in the areas from which they had migrated. They brought slaves with them and purchased more according to their needs. The county counted more slaveholders and more slaves than most other regions of the state; in Missouri as a whole, slaves accounted for only 10 percent of the population, but in Clay County they constituted 25 percent. This influenced how the population acted during and for a period of time after the war. After the passage of the Kansasâ Nebraska Act in, Clay County became the scene of great turmoil, as the question of whether slavery would be expanded into the neighboring Kansas Territory bred tension and hostility. Many people from Missouri migrated to Kansas to try to influence its future. Much of the dramatic build-up to the Civil War centered on the violence that erupted on the Kansasâ Missouri border between proand anti-slavery militias. A bitter conflict ensued, resulting in an escalating cycle of atrocities committed by both sides. Confederate guerrillas murdered civilian Unionists, executed prisoners, and scalped the dead. The Union presence enforced martial law with raids on homes, arrests of civilians, summary executions, and banishment of Confederate sympathizers from the state. He fell ill and returned home soon afterward. In, he was identified as a member of a guerrilla squad that operated in Clay County. They tortured Reuben Samuel by briefly hanging him from a tree. According to legend, they lashed young Jesse. It is thought that he took part in the notorious massacre of some two hundred men and boys in Lawrence, Kansas, a center of abolitionists. In the spring he returned in a squad commanded by Fletch Taylor. Jesse suffered a serious wound to the chest that summer. The Clay County provost marshal reported that both Frank and Jesse James took part in the Centralia Massacre in September, in which guerrillas stopped a train carrying unarmed Union soldiers returning home from duty and killed or wounded some 22 of them; the guerrillas scalped and dismembered some of the dead. The guerrillas also ambushed and defeated a pursuing regiment of Major A. Frank later identified Jesse as a member of the band who had fatally shot Major Johnson. Though ordered to move South beyond Union lines, they moved north across the nearby state border into Nebraska Territory. He is known to have returned to Missouri in the spring. The conflict split the population into three bitterly opposed factions: It temporarily excluded former Confederates from voting, serving on juries, becoming corporate officers, or preaching from church pulpits. The atmosphere was volatile, with widespread clashes between individuals and between armed gangs of veterans from both sides of the war. Meanwhile, his former commander Archie Clement kept his bushwhacker gang together and began to harass Republican authorities. The bank was owned by Republican former militia officers. After the James brothers successfully conducted other robberies and became legendary, some observers retroactively credited them with being the leaders of the robbery. No evidence has been found that connects either brother to the crime, nor conclusively rules them out. Local violence continued to increase in the state; Governor Thomas Clement Fletcher had recently ordered a company of militia into Johnson County to suppress guerrilla activity. Shortly afterward, the state militia shot Clement dead. James wrote about this death with bitterness a decade later. While they later tried to justify robbing the banks, most of their targets were small, local banks based on local capital, and the robberies only penalized the locals they claimed to support. The robbery netted little money. Jesse is believed to have shot and killed the cashier, Captain John Sheets, mistakenly believing him to be Samuel P. James claimed he was taking revenge, and the daring escape he and Frank made through the middle of a posse shortly afterward attracted newspaper coverage for the first time. Courtesy of the Missouri State Archives. The brothers denied the charges, saying they were not in Daviess County on December 7, the day the robbery Page 7

8 occurred. As Frank and Jesse failed to appear in court, Smoote won his case against them. The robbery marked the emergence of Jesse James as the most famous survivor of the former Confederate bushwhackers. It was the first time he was publicly labeled an "outlaw"; Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden set a reward for his capture. Edwards, a former Confederate cavalryman, was campaigning to return former secessionists to power in Missouri. Six months after the Gallatin robbery, Edwards published the first of many letters from Jesse James to the public, asserting his innocence. Over time, the letters gradually became more political in tone, as James denounced the Republicans and expressed his pride in his Confederate loyalties. The high tensions in politics accompanied his outlaw career and enhanced his notoriety. With Jesse James as the most public face of the gang though with operational leadership likely shared among the group, the gang carried out a string of robberies from Iowa to Texas, and from Kansas to West Virginia. For this, they wore Ku Klux Klan masks. Former rebels attacked the railroads as symbols of threatening centralization. The gang held up passengers only twice, choosing in all other incidents to take only the contents of the express safe in the baggage car. John Newman Edwards made sure to highlight such techniques when creating an image of James as a kind of Robin Hood. They had two children who survived to adulthood: Jesse Edward James b. The Chicago -based agency worked primarily against urban professional criminals, as well as providing industrial security, such as strike breaking. Because the gang received support by many former Confederate soldiers in Missouri, they eluded the Pinkertons. Two other agents, Captain Louis J. Lull and John Boyle, were sent after the Youngers; Lull was killed by two of the Youngers in a roadside gunfight on March 17, Before he died, Lull fatally shot John Younger. A deputy sheriff named Edwin Daniels also died in the skirmish. He began to work with former Unionists who lived near the James family farm. On the night of January 25,, he staged a raid on the homestead. But biographer Ted Yeatman located a letter by Pinkerton in the Library of Congress in which Pinkerton declared his intention to "burn the house down. The Missouri state legislature narrowly defeated a bill that praised the James and Younger brothers and offered them amnesty. This extended a measure of protection over the Jamesâ Younger gang by minimizing the incentive for attempting to capture them. The governor had offered rewards higher than the new limit only on Frank and Jesse James. They may have suspected Askew of cooperating with the Pinkertons in the January arson of the James house. The robbery quickly went wrong, however, and after the robbery, only Frank and Jesse James remained alive and free. Ames was a stockholder in the bank, but Butler had no direct connection to it. To carry out the robbery, the gang divided into two groups. Three men entered the bank, two guarded the door outside, and three remained near a bridge across an adjacent square. The robbers inside the bank were thwarted when acting cashier Joseph Lee Heywood refused to open the safe, falsely claiming that it was secured by a time lock even as they held a Bowie knife to his throat and cracked his skull with a pistol butt. Assistant cashier Alonzo Enos Bunker was wounded in the shoulder as he fled through the back door of the bank. Meanwhile, the citizens of Northfield grew suspicious of the men guarding the door and raised the alarm. The five bandits outside fired into the air to clear the streets, driving the townspeople to take cover and fire back from protected positions. They shot two bandits dead and wounded the rest in the barrage. Inside, the outlaws turned to flee. As they left, one shot the unarmed cashier Heywood in the head. Historians have speculated about the identity of the shooter but have not reached consensus. The gang barely escaped Northfield, leaving two dead companions behind. A massive manhunt ensued. It is believed that the gang burned 14 Rice County mills shortly after the robbery. The militia soon discovered the Youngers and one other bandit, Charlie Pitts. In a gunfight, Pitts died and the Youngers were taken prisoner. Frank seemed to settle down, but Jesse remained restless. He recruited a new gang in and returned to crime, holding up a train at Glendale, Missouri now part of Independence, [48] on October 8, The robbery was the first in a spree of crimes, including the hold-up of the federal paymaster of a canal project in Killen, Alabama, and two more train robberies. But the new gang was not made up of battle-hardened guerrillas; they soon turned against each other or were captured. James grew suspicious of other members; he scared away one man and some believe that he killed another gang member. A law enforcement posse attacked and killed two of the outlaws but failed to capture the entire gang. Among the deputies was Jefferson B. Snyder, later a long-serving district attorney in northeastern Louisiana. James moved his family to St. Joseph, Missouri in November, not far from where he had been born and reared. Page 8

9 Chapter 6 : 10 Great Train Robberies Mental Floss Based solely on longevity, Jesse James was one of America's most successful bank robbers; he eluded authorities for nearly 15 years. But in other respects, the operations didn't always go. September 20, 1. The First Train Robbery in the West Although Jesse James popularly gets credit for committing the first train robbery, the following robbery actually predates his: The conductor was forced to apply the brakes and separate the engine, tender, baggage and express cars from the rest of the train. The engineer was then taken to the express car to request admittance. When the door opened, the expressman was greeted three sawed off shotguns. The spoils weighed over lbs. All of the robbers were apprehended or killed before being able to enjoy their bounty. He and his colleagues the James-Younger gang, had already established a local reputation for crime before the legendary robbery. Former confederate guerillas, the gang dressed in KKK garb. They then loosened part of the track and attached a rope to it near the Adair, Iowa station. As the Rock Island train approached the station on July 21,, the engineer saw the rope tied to the rail. He attempted to back the train up to avoid the hazard, but was unsuccessful. The engine, tender, and baggage cars were derailed and the engineer killed. They were again dressed in KKK masks and sent shock waves through the small community. They lit a bonfire within sight of the station platform and had one member to the gang stand on the platform holding a red signal lamp. The train did not normally stop at the Gads Hill station but was scheduled to do so that day in order for State Rep. Farris to meet up with his son. As the train neared the station, the conductor jumped off the train to see what was going on, he was seized and the train was switched to a siding. On June 2, around 2: The men overtook the first engine and made the engineer disconnect the second part of the train, which had its own engine. Then they blew up a small wooden bridge after the first engine had passed over, to prevent anyone in the second section from following. Forcing the trainmen over to the mail car to begin their raid, three of the bandits blew the door off of the car with dynamite. Not satisfied with what they found, the gang continued on to the express car. There they found the express car messenger. When he refused to open the door for the robbers, they opened it themselves with more dynamite. The Newton boys, all brothers, were known for never killing anyone. They also never stole from women and children. Still, they were still the most successful bank robbers in the United States. For this big heist, they recruited postal inspector William J. Fahy, one of the best investigators at the time, to help them plan it. Also in their employ were several local gangsters. Instead of horses, the Newton gang boasted fast cars. One of the gang members accidentally shot Dock Newton during the heist. This slip up led to the capture of the gang members. Within 7 months of the heist, all suspects were apprehended and sentenced. The gold was stored sealed, bound by iron bars, and secured in double key safes. The highly guarded bars were weighed after completing its traverse of the English Channel via boat, but two of the safes weighed slightly more and one slightly less than the original weight. In Paris, it was discovered that the gold had been replaced by lead shots. Masterminds William Pierce and Edward Agar, with the help of a railway clerk, had boarded the train with carpet bags and shoulder satchels full of lead shots. All were quickly caught and jailed. Another Great Train Robbery? It consisted of 12 carriages where postal workers sorted, picked up, and dropped off mail along the trip. Just after 3am, the driver brought the train to a stop at a tampered, red signal. When he tried to call for more information, he found the lines cut. The gang had cut all phone lines in the vicinity, but authorities where still hot on their trails. Fingerprints had been left all over the crime scene and the culprits were quickly identified. The Bezdany Raid This was no normal train robbery! No, this was an attempt to free Poland from Russian and Austro-Hungarian occupation. The plan was to overtake a train and station at Bezdany. After a short firefight, where one Russian solider was killed and five injured, the gang blew open the mail car, gathered the money into bags and fled. He was captured and sentenced to life at the British Columbian Penitentiary, but managed to tunnel out and was never seen again!! People no longer had to carry gold with them when they traveled. Once aboard, the brothers set off dynamite to open up the mail car. However, they wound up using too much dynamite and succeeded only in killing the mail clerk and destroying anything of value. The ensuing investigation was one of the most elaborate in United States history and laid Page 9

10 the foundation for modern criminal forensics. Page 10

11 Chapter 7 : The Gads Hill Train Robbery Sundown Trail Adair, Iowa: Jesse James - First Train Robbery in the West The monument features the actual section of track that Jesse James moved to derail the train on July 21, The plaque, mounted in a train wheel, was stolen years ago and taken to Ohio; then the thief's house burned down and the plaque was discovered and return. There were two men inside the modest one-story building; the bank cashier and a lawyer named William McDowell. As McDowell ran for the door, he was shot in the arm. Jesse grabbed a portfolio of bank paper and raced outside. He and Frank rode out of town pursued by a posse, but they eventually escaped. The Gallatin robbery set the pattern for others to come. It resulted in the death of unarmed civilians. In June, he and members of his gang robbed a bank in Croydon, Iowa, arriving during a speech by noted orator Henry Clay Dean that had drawn most of the town to the local Methodist church. The publicity-seeking continued when Jesse turned his attention to railroads; he left behind press releases boasting of the crimes. Another part of the Gallatin pattern was on display during an April robbery in Kentucky; the lead robber walked into the bank, said "good evening" to the unarmed cashier, and promptly shot him down. The Kentucky robbery netted little, as the mortally wounded cashier refused to open the bank vault. But whether he made much money or not, each robbery seemed to give Jesse a taste for more. In, that taste would lead to his boldest expedition yet. After two weeks of reconnaissance, eight bandits rode into Northfield on the afternoon of September 7. Then they split up: Once inside, they climbed over the counter, ordering the three employees to their knees. But citizens outside had noticed the outlaws and begun arriving with guns. As shots rang out, Jesse and his comrades had to retreat. Several members of the gang would be cut down, others captured; in the end only Jesse and Frank would make it back the miles to safety in Missouri. Their most ambitious operation ended in the greatest disaster. But before they left the bank that day, one of them, Frank or Jesse, did the one thing that more than any other defined their life of crime; he raised his revolver and shot the unarmed bookkeeper dead. Train heists were a new and particularly dramatic type of crime: It was a smart way to rob, since the perpetrators could pick their location, always somewhere remote, far from any pesky lawmen. The James gang was shrewd about the financial benefits and switched to robbing trains, for the most part, in the s. They caught cash shipments on the move, usually emptying the safe in the express car and leaving passengers alone, which helped their image with the public. Learn More Related Features. Page 11

12 Chapter 8 : Review: Jesse James and the First Missouri Train Robbery Beautiful cinematography by Roger Deakins. "The Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford" by Andrew Dominik, rights belong to Warner Bros Pictures. A bold and daring robbery that resulted in no casualties, the Gads Hill robbery did much to add to the legend of the James-Younger gang. Beights has been fascinated with the Gads Hill robbery since he was a boy, and his book reflects many years of patient research in original sources and with descendants of some of those touched by the bandits along their route. Beights begins the story on January 13,, as five mysterious, and heavily armed, travelers ride through Arkansas. Two days later these five robbed a stagecoach at Hot Springs. Beights follows them back into Missouri and the robbed train, and then along their escape route back to the home ground of the James-Youngers in western Missouri. As Beights relates, in the next few months following the robbery three detectives and one of the Youngers would die in gun battles as the Pinkerton Agency tried to apprehend the Gads Hill robbers. Beights is certain that Jesse and Frank James were two of the five robbers, and the evidence is indeed convincing on this point. Of the remaining three, two were probably Youngers, with Beights seeming to like Jim and John for the role, though he acknowledges that at least one of those robbed at Gads Hill was later certain that Cole Younger was one of the robbers. Clair County around the time the escaping robbers reached there. They ended up in a battle with three Pinkerton men on March 16,, with two of the Pinkertons and John Younger killed in the process. For the fifth man, Beights is not certain at all. Arthur McCoy and Clell Miller seem to be his two leading candidates, but Beights does not seem willing to choose between them. However, based on physical descriptions, my money is on McCoy. In their wanderings, the fifth man was described as being around 40 years old and over six feet tall. It is worth noting that the St. Louis arrived and managed to quell the outbreak before it became an all-out war which, quite frankly, is what the Minute Men were after just then. McCoy continued to be familiar with St. Louis newspaper readers as a Captain and spy who often slipped into and out of St. According to John N. At any rate, it should be no surprise that the St. Louis newspapers would look at the lineup of the gang and decide that McCoy was probably the one calling the shots. Certainly his was the name that their readers would be most likely to recognize with a shiver of apprehension. It is interesting to note that one of the robbers evinced an especial hatred of the St. Louis two biggest newspapers --the Republican was a Democratic paper and the Democrat was a Republican paper, and therefore was to be despised by all ex-confederates. McCoy as an ex-confederate St. Louisian was likely to have an even deeper hatred of the Democrat than his western Missouri compatriots. It seems likely that Beights withholds naming McCoy as the fifth man for sure based on the report in the St. Louis Dispatch that McCoy had died in Texas on January 11,, and therefore could not have been involved. The thing is, the Dispatch was John N. Edwards paper just then, and this would not be the first nor last time that Edwards had covered for McCoy or the James boys. Louis Democrat reprinted the claim on April 11, and then on April 14, the Dispatch claimed to have an anonymous letter from Texas claiming that McCoy had died there in January. It seems clear that the Dispatch article was prompted by two things. One was the report in the hated Democrat of three days before. As Beights reports, Edwards was out of town when the Feb. If McCoy was already dead anyway in the reported March shootout, at least he could protect the family somewhat by deflecting blame for the Gads Hill train robbery. James and Youngers that did the job after all; a line of thought that Edwards was trying to encourage just then. What Beights does do exceedingly well, however, is return to original sources, and to the reports and oral history of those who came in contact with the outlaws in the weeks surrounding the robbery. No reproduction or distribution without consent of author. Feel free to link to this or any other page on the site. Page 12

13 Chapter 9 : 6 Daring Train Robberies - HISTORY Jesse James' first Train Robbery The notorious gang leader, Jesse James, is a Wild West legend. He and his colleagues the James-Younger gang, had already established a local reputation for crime. Posted on January 14, by Sundown Trail They came out of nowhere, five men on horseback, their pistols at the ready. The drivers of the stagecoach and the two accompanying freight wagons were not of a mind to resist. The date was January 15, The stagecoach passengers had departed the train at Malvern, Arkansas and boarded the coach for a twenty-five mile ride to Hot Springs. Mainly they were affluent people intending to spend a winter vacation enjoying the hot mineral water bathes and luxurious accommodations the town was famous for. They were rowed up beside the coach and systematically relieved of their money, watches, and jewelry by the polite but demanding highwaymen. The James-Younger gang took a little over two thousand dollars from that robbery. Later it was determined that the unidentified men were probably James and John Younger. The gang disappeared and efforts to find them turned up no clues. We now know they headed north. They probably had holed up in nearby Greene County. The former Confederate guerillas would have found many friends in Greene County. At Chalk Bluff they had the local blacksmith re-shoe their horses. He wisely asked no questions. They paid him for his services and went on their way. Back in July the gang robbed a train in Iowa, but their money was running low and somewhere along the way they devised a plan to rob a train in Missouri. This was to be their first train robbery in Missouri. They determined Gads Hill would be a good location to hit. The village consisted of few houses, a store, a railroad loading platform, and siding switch. Trains were sometimes switched off to pick up loads of logs or lumber or passengers. While the robbed train was going south to Piedmont to report the hold up, the robbers would travel north lengthening the distance between them and any pursuers. Then they would turn northwest into some of the roughest terrain in Missouri. They followed a route from Arkansas into Missouri that many a Confederate raiding party had used a scant decade before. Much of the area was yet swampland. They probably tarried just long enough to find two more local men to obtain the train schedules and act as guides and lookouts. The area and the people had been savaged terribly by Federal troops. To the west of the Current River a former Federal militia officer, the nefarious Colonel Billy Monks, still held control over Howell and adjoining counties, forcing former Confederate sympathizers to leave or face destruction and death by night riders. To the east in Stoddard County, night riders were active also. Along Crowleys Ridge several murders had occurred. In short the war, for some, had not ended in It would not be difficult for the gang to find a couple of helpers. The store owner was robbed and the rest of the village inhabitants were rounded up. Some accounts say they were placed in the store. Some say they were kept around a large bonfire. Others say a small station house was used to detain them. This writer believes that it is more likely they were held under guard in the store. A bonfire would attract unwanted attention and a crowded station house would have looked suspicious. The James-Younger gang was well aware that the railroad owners and the bankers had hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to capture the gang and put a stop to the robberies. Pinkerton was becoming increasingly frustrated and was said to be riding some trains himself. They fully expected to find a Pinkerton man on this train. The siding switch was opened and a red flag readied to warn the train to stop or face derailment on the siding. At about four-thirty in the afternoon the southbound St. Louis to Little Rock passenger train braked to a stop even though the man waving the red flag wore a mask. The conductor stepped off the train and was promptly relieved of his money and valuables. Four other outlaws appeared and boarded the train. They announced that they were there to rob the rich and would not take money from working men and the ladies. They checked the hands of the men for calluses and those with soft hands were promptly robbed. Those with fancy clothes and hats were given special attention. When one lady was found to have four hundred dollars in her purse they reneged on their promise to rob men only and took her money. They asked the male passengers their names and place of residence, checking them closely. They were looking for a Pinkerton detective. In the express car they broke open the safe with a sledge hammer and proceeded to take anything of value from it. The gang collected at least two thousand dollars. Some sources put the amount taken at five thousand. Satisfied they had Page 13