Cement Okla. is about a 6 hour drive from here. Let me know if I need to go down there. A good friend of ours claim's His great grandfather was Jesse. My friend has been on the history channel with his son and has been involved in proving Jesse was indeed his great grandfather... my buddys names are Chuck James and his son is Jeremiah James. I do not know weather or not all this is true of my friends but there researching deep & have been for years...
Well, it appears that a dirty little coward really did shoot Mr. Howard and
send poor Jesse James to his grave.
A History Channel documentary premiering Tuesday pretty much blows a
hole like a Colt .45 round through Wichita museum entrepreneur Ron
Pastore's theory that the legendary outlaw faked his death and peacefully
lived to a ripe, old age as Jeremiah (aka Jerry Miah) James of Neodesha.
DNA evidence, revealed in the documentary by Kansan Bill Kurtis, rules
out a genetic link between remains gathered at a May exhumation of
Jeremiah James' bones and DNA samples obtained from known
descendants of Jesse James' sister.
"We had a good sample," Kurtis said. "I think that's conclusive that
Jeremiah James in Neodesha is not Jesse James."
Pastore's Jesse James Museum in Wichita's Delano district is now closed.
Artifacts obtained from Jeremiah James' descendants have been
reclaimed by the family members because of a falling out between them
and Pastore, said Chuck James of Neodesha.
Chuck James has been the chief spokesman for the wing of the Jeremiah
James family that believed their clan were the real descendants of Jesse
James.
And just as Jesse James never gave up fighting the War of Northern
Aggression, Chuck James said he is not willing to let go of the belief that
his great-granddad was one of the Old West's most storied outlaws.
"I still believe he was," he said. "I've done the research."
His belief is fueled by two cases of Jesse James memorabilia, found
stashed away in the home of his great-aunt Daisy, Jeremiah James'
daughter.
The family discovered the artifacts and photographs when cleaning out
her house after her death in 1975.
"Now the question is: How did those artifacts -- which I believe are
authentic -- how did they get in Aunt Daisy's trunk in that farmhouse?"
Kurtis said.
He added that he's concluded they were probably passed down to her
from someone who was a collector, fanatically interested in the history of
Jesse James.
A disputed history
For the moment, let's look at what nearly everyone agrees on when it
comes to the legend of Jesse James.
First, there is no disputing that there actually was a Jesse Woodson
James, born the son of a Baptist preacher in Clay County, Mo., on Sept.
5, 1847.
As a teen, he and his family were brutalized by Northern sympathizers in
the then-tumultuous Missouri-Kansas border region.
So, with his older brother Frank, he joined up with Quantrill's Raiders, a
band of Confederate guerrilla fighters who visited destruction and death
on Unionist soldiers and civilians in Kansas and Missouri. He also served
as a Confederate spy.
After the war, Jesse James turned to robbing banks and trains, either for
personal gain or maybe to try to finance a rebirth of the Southern cause
-- or maybe a little bit of both.
And there's absolutely no doubt he became a folk hero to many who, in a
time of rampant corporate abuse of the populace, had no love for
bankers or railroadmen.
Traditionalists and revisionists part company about the time of his
reported death in 1882.
Traditional history says that Jesse James -- living under the alias Thomas
Howard -- was killed by a single bullet shot to the back of the head as he
stood on a chair straightening a picture at a rented home in St. Joseph,
Mo. The home is now one of several James museums.
The killer was Robert Ford, Jesse James' cousin and a James Gang recruit
who turned traitor to collect a $10,000 wanted-dead-or-alive reward.
The revisionist versions are pretty much summed up in the title of
Pastore's two-part book: "Jesse James Faked His Death."
They point to inconsistencies in the witness testimony of the time. For
example, witnesses testified that only one shot was fired and that it
punctured the wall after exiting Jesse James' head. The bullet was
actually found lodged in the skull in a 1978 exhumation of his original
grave at the family farm in Kearney, Mo.
And, they point out, the bullet was a .38 caliber, not the .45 that Ford
testified to having fired.
Jesse James sightings started almost before the body was cold.
At least three other possible Jesses have surfaced in the 121 years since.
Any of them may have been Jesse James, at least, part-time.
Most historians have concluded that some of the robberies originally
attributed to the James Gang were copycat crimes, committed by others
masquerading as Frank, Jesse and their accomplices.
In fact, Jesse James added to his own legend by writing letters to
newspapers denying involvement in some of the robberies committed in
his name.
Moving on up the trail
Kurtis said he has come to the conclusion that the body now buried in the
family plot near Kearney, Mo., really is that of the outlaw Jesse James.
But, he said, no amount of evidence will ever convince everybody. "That's
what makes it such a great story," he said.
For now, though, he's through with searching for Jesse James.
Pastore wouldn't talk about the DNA results until after Tuesday because of
a nondisclosure agreement with the History Channel and Kurtis. He also
was vague about his own plans, saying only that there would be an
announcement about future displays of the James family artifacts after
the TV show debuts.
Chuck James said his family has reclaimed about 90 percent of its
artifacts from Pastore.
One day, he hopes to open a museum of his own or put the collection on
display elsewhere in Kansas if he gets the right offer.
He said he "ain't very happy" with Kurtis' documentary, which he found
long on re-enactment -- mostly shot at Wichita's Old Cowtown Museum --
and short on materials he provided to the filmmakers.
Still, he said he plans to hold a special screening of the documentary --
with the History Channel's permission -- at 3 p.m. Sunday at the high
school in Neodesha.
"You got to take what you got and go with it," he said.
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