USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I > Part 67
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the newspapers of the day affected to identify as Ol Shepherd, Bud Pence and Red Monks, while two others of Quantrell's men, Jim White and Bill Chiles, were said to be con- nected with the robbery by circumstantial evidence. In the fall of the same year Mitchell & Company's Bank, in Lexington, was robbed of $2,000. In the spring of 1867 the bank of Hughes & Mason, at Richmond, Missouri, was robbed by a party of armed men, who rode up, and, three of them enter- ing the building, held a pistol to the head of the cashier and forced him to give up to them about $4,000, which they took and made their escape, the whole transaction taking but a few minutes. Some of the party were recog- nized, or thought to be recognized, and a warrant issued called for the arrest of Payne Jones, Dick Burnes, Ike Flannery, Andy Mc- Guire, Jim White and John White, all of whom participated afterward in affairs of a similar character. Shortly afterward a party of the same gang robbed the bank at Savan- nah, Missouri. On the 20th of March, 1868, the bank at Russellville, Kentucky, was robbed by five men, who, after a desperate struggle, in which the cashier, Mr. Long, was killed. got away with $14,000. This is the first affair in which the name of the Youngers appeared, Cole Younger being accused as a participant, and Frank and Jesse James also. It was afterward discovered that both the Jameses were in another part of the country at the time, and could not have been in it. On the 7th of December, 1869, occurred the robbery of the Daviess County Savings Bank, at Gallatin, Missouri, attended by the killing of the cashier, Mr. Scheetz. It was the work of two men, mounted and armed, who rode up to the bank, one of whom quickly dis- mounted and entered, and with a drawn pis- tol demanded the money. The cashier re- fused and was instantly shot, and the robber, hastily taking all the money in sight, about $700, made his way outside, where his con- federate, with pistol drawn, was holding prisoner a citizen, Mr. McDowell, who had attempted to go in. In mounting his horse, a spirited animal, the robber with the money met with an accident, which might have made a large part of the bank and train robbery that followed impossible. The horse started before he was mounted, he fell to the ground and was dragged with his foot in the stirrup a distance of thirty feet. By a desperate
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effort he managed to draw himself up and disengage his foot, and, as his horse ran off, he leaped behind his confederate and the two escaped. Two miles ont from the town they met a farmer named Daniel Smoot, riding a good gray horse, which, with drawn re- volvers, they took from him to replace the animal they left behind. The robber's horse was captured and traced back to Clay County, where it was recognized as one owned by Jesse James. A sheriff's posse was secretly organized, wlrich rode at night to the Samuel House, near Kearney, where the James boys had their home. As the posse were taking their stations around the house a little negro boy ran out, and without a word rushed to the stable: the next instant the stable door flew open, and the James boys, mounted and armed, dashed off, amid a volley of bullets, and escaped. Fourteen years after, Frank James was tried for the murder of Cashier Scheetz and acquitted. In explanation of what appeared to be the unnecessary killing of Cashier Scheetz it was afterward suggested that he was mistaken for another man, Lieu- tenant Colonel S. P. Cox, who, with a bat- talion of the Thirty-third Missouri Union troops, had in 1864 defeated and destroyed Bill Anderson's band of guerrillas, Colonel Cox, in the fight, killing the guerrilla chief with his own hand. The few survivors had bound themselves with an oath to avenge the. death of their leader: and it was recalled, after the death of Scheetz, that a few minutes before the event he stood in front of the bank talking with Colonel Cox, who was a citizen of Gallatin, and as they talked they were ob- served by the two men, standing on the oppo- site side of the street, who a few minutes later entered the bank and committed the crime. On the 3d of June. 1871, the bank at Cory- don, Iowa, was robbed by a party supposed to be the Jameses and Youngers and Clel Miller. Miller was arrested, but proved an alibi and was released. On the 29th of June, the following year, the bank at Columbia, Kentucky, was attacked by a party of men who were riding through the county for a week before, pretending to be purchasing cattle. Their appearance was in keeping with the habits of stock dealers, and their easy and cordial manners gained the confidence of the hospitable people, with many of whom they became acquainted during their explorations, which were probably undertaken to familiar-
ize themselves with the roads and by-paths and landmarks. John Leavette was supposed to be associated with the Jameses and Youngers in the enterprise. The robbers rode into the town in their usual way and took their stations, two of them going into the bank, where were three citizens talking to the cashier, R. A. C. Martin, who was sitting behind the counter with his chair tipped back, unconscious of danger. When the robbers drew their revolvers and covered the cashier and his friends, sharply demanding the money, Mr. Martin grappled with the one in front of him, and was making a stout resist- ance when the robber fired, and he fell dead. Raking up the loose money which was within reach, about $600, he ran from the bank with his companions; they mounted their horses, and the whole party, putting spurs to their steeds, were out of sight in an instant. A posse was hastily summoned and mounted and started in pursuit, but never came in sight of the bandits, who, turning from one road into another to baffle the pur- stiers, rode nearly around the town before they finally started off. They were traced to Nelson County, in the same State, but that was all. The Jameses had friends in that county, and were almost as much at home there as in their own State. In September, 1872, while the fair at Kansas City was going on and the grounds thronged with people, the cash box was seized by a man, who, with a confederate acting with him, made their way with drawn revolvers through the crowd and escaped. The Kansas City papers de- clared that the robbers were the Jameses. On the 27th of May, 1873, the bank at Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, was robbed by four men, the leader of whom was said to be rec- ognized as Arthur MeCoy, with two of the Youngers in the party. On the 21st of July, 1873. there was a train robbery at Adair, Iowa. Detectives from Chicago were put on the track of the robbers and the trail fol- lowed to Monegaw Springs, in St. Clair County, Missouri, where the Youngers lived ; but the detectives found that an attempt to arrest them in a neighborhood full of their friends would be a dangerous business, and the matter was dropped. On the 15th of January, 1874, the Hot Springs coach, in Ar- kansas, was halted and the passengers robbed by five men wearing United States Army overcoats. Two weeks later occurred the
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train robbery on the Iron Mountain Railroad at Gad's Hill, Missouri, which was said to be the work of Arthur McCoy, two of the Younger brothers, Jim Reed and a man named Greenwood. In September, 1875, the bank at Huntington, West Virginia, was robbed by four men, one of whom, recog- nized as Thompson McDaniels, of Kansas City, was killed before he could escape, and another, Jack Kean, was captured, the other two, supposed to be Cole Younger and Clel Miller, making their escape. In July, 1876, the bank at Otterville, Missouri, was robbed by a gang, one of whom, Hobbs Kerry, was captured and made a confession, in which he asserted that the two Jameses and two of the Youngers, with Clel Miller, Charley Pitts and Bill Chadwell, were concerned in the crime. Some time after, the bank at Corinth, Missis- sippi, was robbed, and on the same day there was a robbery of an express car at Muncie, Kansas, and both transactions, though six hundred miles apart, were charged against the Jameses and Youngers. The next event after the Otterville robbery was the attempt on the bank in Northfield, Minnesota, on the 7th of September, 1876, the most exciting affair of the kind that marked the career of the brigands, and the most disastrous to them. Had they managed it with less reck- lessness and some prudence they would not have fared so badly. There were eight of them in all, the two Jameses, three Young- ers, Clel Miller, Bill Chadwell and Charley Pitts, and the business was begun by three of them riding up to the bank, and two dis- mounting and giving their horses to the third, while they entered the bank, and, with re- volvers pointed at the officers, demanded that the vault be opened. One instant after, three others dashed into the public square, firing their revolvers, while two others galloped in by another street, and opened a fusillade also. The citizens recognized the danger and met it promptly. They seized their arms, and those in the neighborhood of the bank opened such a fire on the robbers from windows that the one holding the horses at the bank door called out to his comrades in- side: "Hurry up! It's getting too hot out here!" Those inside had met with opposi- tion from the bank officers, who refused to give up the money, and when they heard the call of their comrade they shot and killed the cashier, Mr. Haygood, and mounted their
horses and fled with the others out of town. Two were shot and killed by the citizens, and the others were pursued by officers and citi- zens without respite till, on the 13th, six days after the beginning, the six survivors were surrounded in a woods several miles from Mankato. At night four of them, the three Youngers and Bill Chadwell, dashed through the picket line, but were pursued, overtaken and surounded again. Brought to bay, they fought, one dropping after another, until only Bob Younger was left standing, barefooted and with his right arm broken, hanging by his side, but still firing his revolver with his left hand. But the odds were too great against him, and at last he called out : "Hold up! The boys are all shot to pieces !" Chad- well was killed, Cole Younger was shot twice, Jim Younger had eight buckshot and one rifle ball wounds, and Bob Younger had his arm broken. After the escape of the Youngers from the woods near Mankato, the other two robbers, supposed to be the James brothers, broke through the line also, and got away from the pursuers, their woodcraft and power of endurance enabling them to keep ahead of the pursuit. When their horses gave out they would steal others and continue the flight, going into the towns at times to buy provisions, but keeping up the race until their pursuers abandoned it. In the northwest corner of Iowa they met a party of citizens who had come from Yank- ton to intercept them; but in the sharp figlit that took place the outlaws put them to flight, with one of their number killed, and continued their journey. A few miles from Sioux Falls they met a physician, Dr. Mosher, whom they compelled to dress their wounds. They were stiff and sore and ragged, riding on sacks of hay for saddles. This was the last seen of them. It is sup- posed they made their way into Missouri, where they found shelter and treatment for their wounds under the roof of one or more of their many friends. The Younger brothers were taken to Northfield, tried, convicted and sent to the penitentiary for life. Their de- portment in prison was so exemplary as to win the good will of the officials over them, and it is said they received every favor the discipline of the prison would allow them. Efforts were made by their friends to secure their release, and one Governor of Minnesota informally agreed to pardon them on condi-
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tion that they become State's witnesses and tell all about the Northfield robbery, and give the names of all the persons concerned in it ; but this they resolutely declined to do. Clel Miller, who was killed by the citizens in the fight, had been a member of Bill Anderson's Missouri guerrillas, and was captured in the fight near Albany, Ray County, in 1864, in which the band was defeated by a force of Unionists under Lieutenant Colonel Cox. He was only fourteen years old at that time, and when the Union soldiers wanted to kill him, in revenge for the Centralia massacre, Col- onel Cox interfered and saved his life in con- sideration of his tender years. It was said that the boy never forgot the kindness. The brigands were made up of the odds and ends of Anderson's, Quantrell's and Todd's guer- rillas, and their several plots to kill Colonel Cox, for shooting Anderson on the field with his revolver, were always thwarted, Miller se- cretly giving information to the intended vic- tim. On the 8th of October, 1879, the express robbery at Glendale, in Jackson County, occurred; and, on the night of July 15th, the train robbery at Winston, in Daviess County, attended by the killing of the conductor, William Westfall, and of John MeMillen, an employe on the road. There were ten persons engaged in this work. They boarded the train at Cameron, and when near Winston Station, in Daviess County, sud- denly drew their revolvers and called on the passengers to deliver their money. One of the number presented his revolver at Con- ductor Westfall's breast, and, with the re- mark, "You are the man I want." fired and killed him. A passenger named McDowell was also shot and wounded. The United States Express agent, Charles Murray, was overpowered and the safe robbed of packages estimated at $2,000 to $15,000. The Win- ston affair brought matters to such a pass that extraordinary measures were held to be justifiable, and, indeed, necessary for dealing with brigands, whom the ordinary agencies and processes of law had signally failed to reach, and whose intelligence, discipline and reckless daring enabled them to escape after every robbery. Accordingly, on the 28th of July, two weeks after the Winston affair. Governor Crittenden adopted measures which marked the beginning of the end. He issued a proclamation reciting the robberies at Glendale and Winston, and offering a re-
ward of $5,000 for the arrest and conviction of either and each person participating in either of these crimes, except the Jameses, and $5.000 for the arrest and delivery of either or each of them to the sheriff of Daviess County, and $5,000 for the convic- tion of either and each of the Jameses. On the 3d of April, 1882, occurred the most dramatic and startling event in the career of the outlaws, a tragedy in which the tide was turned against them, and they themselves forced to furnish a victim in the person of the most conspicuous and daring of their number. Jesse James was shot and killed by Bob Ford, a companion, confederate and pre- tended friend. He had come to St. Joseph, Missouri, on the 8th of November, 1881, in a wagon, bringing his wife and two chil- dren-a girl seven years old, and a boy five- and, at the time of his death, was living in a house at the corner of Lafayette and Thir- teenth Streets, under the name of Howard, which he had borne during his sojourn in Tennessee. Bob Ford and Charley Ford, who had recently been taken into the partnership to fill gaps made by the death of others, were living with him, waiting for an opportunity to fulfill a promise, it was afterward asserted, Bob had made to deliver their chief to the officers of the law, dead or alive. The elder James, Frank, is said to have distrusted Bob. while having perfect confidence in Charley, but Jesse took them both into his confidence and kept them with him under his own roof, without ever betraying a sign of fear of their loyalty. During the five months they lived at St. Joseph, all three were accustomed to live quietly at home in the day, but at night they. walked the streets boldly, and the officers of the law never once suspected the game within their reach. There was a stable on the place where they lived. and here the three horses, fine thoroughbred animals, were kept. ready at a moment's warning to bear their masters into danger, or out of it, as the need might be ; and it was said that a plot had been agreed on to ride into Platte County and rob the bank at Platte City, on the 4th of April, and on the fatal day Jesse had come from the stable, where he had been currying his horse, and, with a remark about how warm it was to the two Fords, took off his coat and vest and threw them on the bed. This left his pistol belt exposed, and with the remark that this might attract attention and excite
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suspicion. he unbuckled it and laid it on the bed too, and taking a feather duster stood on a chair to brush the pictures on the wall. The quick eye of Bob Ford recognized that the opportunity for which he was waiting and watching had come, and quickly and silently drawing his revolver with his left hand-for he was left-handed-he stepped up behind his friend and chief, and, with the muzzle of his weapon within two feet of his head, pulled the trigger, and Jesse James sunk to the floor with two bullet holes in his head, the ball entering at the base of the skull in the rear and coming out of the forehead. The assassin saw that his work was too well done to need another shot, and, rushing out of the door before any one could enter, the Fords made their escape. The wife of the outlaw heard the shot, and when she came to learn the cause found herself alone with her husband. She knelt by his side, and was found wiping away the blood which flowed in a stream from the wound in the forehead. The dying man made an attempt to speak, but failed, and in a few moments was dead. The event made a profound impression throughout western Missouri, and the effect of it was felt in the adjoining States. One of the two inventors and leaders of the bank and express robberies that had been going on for sixteen years had met a bloody fate, and it was recognized that the gang, of which he had been easily chief, would go to pieces. One after another of its members, twenty in all, had been shot, hanged and im- prisoned without breaking it up, because the leaders were able to draw into it other des- . perate young men to take the places of those who fell ; but it could not survive the death of one of its leaders, particularly when it was an act of treachery. The James brothers could always trust one another. and from first to last their confederates could trust them ; but the organization could not be maintained by the surviving brother without absolute con- fidence in the material taken in. Besides, the surviving brother was now thirty-nine years of age, with more than a dozen bullet scars in his body : there was a price upon his head. and wherever he went, even among his friends, he carried with him the constant ap- prehension of treachery. The system of rob- beries which he had inaugurated was still going on, and he continued to be held re- sponsible for them, with the officers of the
law constantly on his track, and the houses of his friends and relatives constantly ex- posed to espionage and attack. There was but one thing to do, and this he resolved on. On the 6th of October, 1882, Frank James, accompanied by Major John N. Edwards, ed- itor and author, well known in the State at the time for his book, "Shelby and his Men," arrived at Jefferson City at midnight, on a train from the West, and went to the Mc- Carty House, where they registered, Ed- wards in his true name, and James under the name of B. F. Winfrey, Marshall, Missouri. Next day the two spent the day openly at the hotel and in walking through the city, until 5 o'clock in the evening. when they repaired to the capitol, and ascending the long flight of steps leading to the portico, sought the Governor's private office. Governor Crit- tenden was there, and with him his private secretary, F. J. Farr: Judge Henry, of the Supreme Court ; State Anditor Walker, State Treasurer Chappell. General Waddill, Major Towles, W. K. Bradbury, deputy clerk of the Supreme Court ; V. M. Hobbs, of the State land office; L. E. Davidson, of the State Treasury: George W. Plattenburg, of the Adjutant General's office : John T. Clark, of the State Auditor's office : P. T. Miller, of the State Treasury, and several newspaper men. On being admitted, Major Edwards advanced to the Governor, shook hands with him, and in an easy, matter-of-fact way, introduced "my friend, Mr. Frank James." They took one another by the hand, the chief magistrate and the brigand, and then the unlooked for visitor unbuttoned his coat, and, unbuckling his belt, handed it, with the pistol in it, to the Governor, as a token of surrender and de- livery. "Governor Crittenden," he said, as he proffered the butt of the revolver-a 44 caliber Remington-which had been pre- sented, muzzle foremost, on many a critical occasion, and made to do its part in many a fierce combat, "I want to hand over to you that which no man living, except myself, has ever been permitted to touch, since 1861, and to say that I am your prisoner. I have taken all the cartridges out of the weapon, and you can handle it with safety." Governor Crit- tenden took the revolver by its butt. and. turning to the company in the room, who had not understood what was going on, said : "Gentlemen, this is Frank James, and I take pleasure in introducing him to you." There
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was a look of surprise at the announcement, and then the party came forward, and, one by one, shook hands with the outlaw, who was the smallest person in the assemblage. "I came to Missouri last week," he said, ad- dressing the party. "I have come in the hope that you, gentlemen, will let me prove that I am not nearly so bad a man as 1 have been represented. I have come back to Missouri to try and regain a home and standing among. her people. I have been outside her laws for twenty-one years. I have been hunted like a wild animal from one State to another. I have known no home. I have slept in all sorts of places ; here to-day, there to-mor- row. I have been charged with nearly every crime committed either in Missouri or her neighboring States. I have been taught to suspect my dearest and nearest friend of treachery, and where's the end to be? I am tired of this life of night riding and day hid- ing ; of constant listening for footfalls, crack- ling twigs, rustling leaves, and creaking doors; tired of the saddle, the revolver and the cartridge belt. The one desire of my life is to regain the citizenship which I lost in the dark days, when, in western Missouri, every man's hand was against his neighbor, and to prove that I am not unworthy of it by sub- mitting to the most rigid tests that the law may require." The Governor told the outlaw that he had no authority to stand between the law and him, and there was no alternative to submitting to the processes and allowing the law to take its course. Accordingly next day he, in company with Major Edwards, the Governor's secretary, Mr. Farr, and Frank R. O'Neil, a well known newspaper corre- spondent, took the train and went to Inde- pendence and surrendered to Prosecuting Attorney Wallace, to answer an indictment in Jackson County for the murder of the de- tective Wyncher. He was imprisoned in the Jackson County jail for a time, but finally re- leased on bail. There was so little evidence obtainable about the killing of Wyncher that it was decided to abandon the case and send the outlaw to Gallatin to be tried for the mur - der of Conductors Westfall and McMillen. and Cashier Scheetz of the Daviess County Savings Bank, thirteen years before. This was accordingly done, and the trials, pro- tracted and attended by much interest, re- sulted in the acquittal of the prisoner, the testimony being too vague and indirect to
connect him with the crimes. The part taken by the Chicago detectives in this history of outlawry forms an interesting feature. They we're constantly at work, but with all their skill, courage and vigilance, were no match for the brigands, who managed to keep bet- ter informed of the movements of the detec- tives, than the detectives were of theirs. On the 16th of March, 1874, a detective named bull, while scouting in St. Clair County, the home of the Youngers, encountered two of them on the highway. Each party recognized the other, and a revolver fight on horseback took place, in which Lull shot and killed John Younger, who was never engaged in the rob- bery business, and was in turn shot and killed by Jim Younger, afterward an active participant in the Northfield bank robbery in Minnesota. One night in January, 1875, a fusillade of bullets was opened on the Samuel house, in Clay County, lasting for several moments, the bullets striking the doors and side of the house and crashing through the windows, killing a child, Archie Samuel, and severely wounding a boy, John Samuel. A bomb was thrown into the house also, which, in its explosion, tore off the right hand of Mrs. Samuel. This event exasperated the James boys and their friends, and provoked the resentment of many who were not their friends : it is probable it was the provocation that led to the killing of Conductor Westfall at Winston. The detectives, in their visits to Clay County, usually came and went on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, and this was sufficient to mark its officials for vengeance. A few weeks after the bomb- throwing a farmer neighbor of the Samuels, named Askew, was shot and killed in his own house yard. The assassin was unknown, but the fact that Agnew was supposed to have given information and rendered assistance to the detectives, was taken to be a sufficient. explanation of the murder. The killing of the detective Wyncher was in perfect harmony with a history marked throughout by mys- tery. silence and unerring vengeance. It is supposed that he was sent out by a detective agency in Chicago to lay a scheme for the entrapment of the outlaws, and his own in- guarded conversation went to confirm this opinion. The first known of him was while on his way to Clay County, where Dr. Sam- uel, stepfather of the Jameses, lived. He had the imprudence to become intoxicated, and
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