Things Heat Up...

Opinions and Discussions

1. Wild West Magazine '02

2. Wild West Magazine '03

3. Letter from James Ross

4. Author John Collier

5. (NOLA) National Association For Outlaw and Lawman History, INC. Letter Cover

6. (NOLA) National Association For Outlaw and Lawman History, INC. Letter Page 3

7. (NOLA) National Association For Outlaw and Lawman History, INC. Letter Page 4

8. Emmett Hoctor letter

9. Howard Smith Farmer letter

10. George Roming Affadavit

11. "Jesse Debate" Fred Slater letter

12. Was Jesse James Really Mr. Howard?

13. History of The Mystery by Carol Holmes

Featured Letters:

Subj: jesse james (E-mail to Betty)

dear betty my name is john welsh and i live in england i have been reading about the james brothers in a book called the old west. many years ago in 1955 when i started at 15 years old a man at this factory was a expert on the old west he had the old newspapers from the days of the james gang till the news of jesse death and he always said that jesse james faked this death the reason things were to hot for him and he could not get out of it so he used his head ... to me he was hell of man.. the same with billy the kid ..many a gunfighter done the same thing butch cassidy sundance kid came back changed their name.. i will be be getting your book betty ..all the best god bless john welsh .england

Since traditionalists believe that Jesse married Zee Mimms simply because newspapers and eye witnesses reported it, why don't they also believe that Jesse died in 1879 since newspaper articles and eye witnesses reported it?

Wild West Magazine, June 2005"Western Lore", pages 64&65
George Shepherd 'killed' JESSE JAMES...at least that's what the ex-bushwhacker and 'gang member' claimed.

By Larry Wood
"AROUND 10 O'CLOCK on Sunday morning, November 2, 1879, a Joplin, Missouri, physician named Burns was driving his buggy in the vicinity of Shoal Creek, file miles southwest of the city, where he'd been summoned on a house call. Shots rang out in the distance up ahead, and a few moments later a one-eyed horseman, brandishing a six-shooter in each hand, came charging down the road toward the startled doctor. "I've just shot a man back there!" shouted the rider, later identified as George Shepherd, as he galloped past. Dr. Burns saw blood gushing from a bullet wound in the man's leg. Presently, Burns came upon two more riders, who seemed to be following Shepherd's trail. They accosted the doctor and told him there was an injured man back there who needed his attention.

They added that they'd seen a dead man being carried off from the same area. Burns followed the two riders as requested and found a man, who he later learned was Jim Cummins, suffering from a serious gunshot wound to the side, but no dead body. Burns treated the man's wound and then, satisfied that his patient would recover, made his way back to Joplin. There he told an altered version of his story that omitted the fact he'd treated one of the shooting victims, presumably because he didn't want to involve himself in what appeared to be foul play.

Meanwhile George Shepherd went to Galena, Kan., a fledgling mining village on Short Creek three miles north of Shoal Creek, and according to the town newspaper, "the throng on the streets of Galena was thrown into the wildest excitement and confusion," as he started proclaiming to anyone who would listen that he'd just killed the notorious outlaw JESSE JAMES. He "offered a bleeding and mangled leg in corroboration of his story" and was soon checked into a local hotel to have the injury treated.

Shepherd, a former William Quantrill bushwhacker, had led a group of guerrillas, including young JESSE JAMES, to Texas at the tail end of the Civil War, but then in 1866 JESSE had teamed up with BLOODY BILL ANDERSON's brother JIM to kill Shepherd's nephew IKE FLANNERY near Rocheport, MO. Shepherd had reportedly avenged the murder a year later by killing JIM ANDERSON on the courthouse grounds at Sherman, Texas.

Despite the feud, Shepherd joined the JAMES GANG and took part in the 1868 Russellville, KY bank robbery, one of the first robberies attributed to the gang. Shepherd spent a short term in the Kentucky penitentiary for his role in the robbery, then returned home to Jackson County, MO., and went straight.

When lead was discovered in southeast Kansas in the late 1870s, he had gone to Short Creek to work in the mines, but at the time the James Gang robbed the Glendale train in Jackson County in October 1879, he was back home working as a teamster.

Kansas City Marshal James Liggett enlisted Shepherd to infiltrate the gang and help capture the robbers by keeping the marshal apprised of the gang's movements. In return for his cooperation, Shepherd figured to pick up a handsome reward. This much Liggett confirmed. However, only Shepherd himself could attest to the sensational claim that he'd killed JESSE JAMES.

According to Shepherd, he went to the home of Jesse's mother, Zerelda Samuel, near Kearney, Mo.,from where he was led blindfolded to the gang's nearby hideout. When the blindfold was removed, he stood facing JESSE JAMES; JIM CUMMINS, another former Quantrill guerrilla; ED MILLER, whose brother had been killed in the Younger-James Gang's botched 1876 Northfield, Minn.,bank robbery; SAM KAUFMAN; and a man named TAYLOR. During the ensuing conversation, JESSE said his brother FRANK had died of consumption a few months earlier.

Shepherd succeeded in gaining the men's confidence, and the gang soon headed for Texas. On the way, they decided to rob a bank at Empire, Galena's rival mining community on the opposite bank of Short Creek, and Shepherd hatched a plan with Liggett's deputies to capture the gang during the holdup.

However, on his final reconnaissance of the bank, JESSE JAMES spotted a guard who'd been stationed there by the marshal. JESSE called off the escapade, and he and the gang proceeded south. Shepherd, however, lingered in town and concocted another impromptu scheme, this time with some old mining buddies. Shepherd was determined to kill JESSE and then lead the rest of the gang into an ambush.

When Shepherd caught up with the gang a mile or two outside Galena, JESSE JAMES expressed suspicion at the length of Shepherd's stay in town, but the march resumed and Shepherd fell in beside JESSE, awaiting an opportunity to put his desperate design into action. After the group had ridden a short distance, JESSE turned to one side and Shepherd promptly pulled his revolver. "This is for killing Ike Flannery!" he supposedly announced as he shot the robber chief through the head.

When Shepherd bolted away, Cummins and Kaufman gave chase while Miller tended to JESSE. Cummins outdistanced his partner and soon engaged Shepherd in a running gun battle. Shepherd hoped to lead his pursuers into the prearranged ambush, but his confederates either were farther away than he expected or failed to show altogether. Seeing that Cummins was about to overtake him, Shepherd faced the oncoming rider in a brief showdown that left both men wounded. Cummins and Kaufman started back to join their fallen leader as Shepherd galloped away.

Shepherd's tale was greeted with almost immediate doubt, and suspicion grew when a party of citizens from Galena went out to the scene of the skirmish on Sunday afternoon to look for JESSE JAMES' body and came back shortly after dark "without any intelligence." Lawmen from Joplin crossed the state line to aid in the investigation, and the next day, Monday, November 3, Marshal Liggett arrived from Kansas City to lead a fruitless search for the outlaws.

As a bold headline in the Galena Miner playfully stated a week later, the question that faced an excited public was "Whether JESSE JAMES, the Robber Chief Lies Dead, or George Shepherd Lies Living." The general consensus around the Joplin-Galena area favored the latter conclusion. Jasper County Deputy Sheriff Payton, who'd gone to Short Creek on Sunday evening, told a Joplin Herald reporter the next day, "I saw Shepherd, and he said he was positive he had killed Jesse James, but for all that I do not believe he did."

Dr. Burns seemed to be among the few men who accepted Shepherd's story. He felt convinced, based presumably on what he'd been told by the two men who'd solicited his help, that a killing had taken place.
The Shepherd affair caused a stir not just locally but throughout the region. When word reached the Kansas City area, Jesse's mother scoffed at the notion that a "one-eyed man," who was "slow as an ox" to boot, could get the drop on her JESSE. She claimed that Shepherd had not come to her home in October as he'd stated and that, in fact, she hadn't seen him for years. However, Mrs. Samuel might naturally want to deny that she'd had anything to do with arranging a meeting that had indirectly led to her son's death.

Speculation about whether JESSE was alive or dead continued for several weeks. The whole state of Missouri buzzed with rumors. In mid-November, JESSE JAMES was reported alive and well in Texas. Late in the month, he and his gang were said to still be in the area of Short Creek.

About the same time, A Kansas City newspaper published a report that JIM CUMMINS had returned to northern Missouri and confirmed Shepherd's story. On December 2, the Joplin Herald said that JESSE JAMES was presumed dead. A report from Richmond, Mo., three days later claimed that a wagon carrying JESSE's decomposing body had been spotted heading for the James home in Clay County. Then a doctor was said to have visited Marshal Liggett and told him that he'd issued a death certificate before turning Jesse's body over to friends. A later account said the coffin bearing the infamous outlaw's corpse had arrived at Kearney by train and that JESSE JAMES was now lying "beneath Clay County turf."

Much conjecture was also centered on George Shepherd's motives. If his story was true, why had he killed JESSE JAMES? No doubt he hoped to collect a reward, and Shepherd himself added that he was also acting to avenge IKE FLANNERY's death. COLE YOUNGER and others pointed to the Russellville bank robbery as the cause of the rift between Shepherd and JESSE JAMES. Cole said that after Shepherd's release from the Kentucky penitentiary, JESSE feared Shepherd might implicate him in the crime.

Shepherd's brother Mac said that George blamed Jesse for his imprisonment. When George was first jailed in Kentucky, members of the gang had tried to raise bond money to go his bail, but JESSE supposedly refused to contribute.

Another observer suggested that George somehow blamed JESSE for the death of his cousin Oliver Shepherd, who was killed by deputies sent out to arrest him after the Russellville robbery.

Cole Younger also added that there had been, at one time, a dispute between George Shepherd and JESSE JAMES over a woman.
Opinions varied, too, among those who felt Shepherd was lying.
Many suggested that JESSE and his gang, not Shepherd, had instigated the skirmish south of Galena because they suspected Shepherd of betraying the gang. Others speculated that JESSE JAMES, acting in cahoots with Shepherd, had staged the shootout in order to share in his own reward money and to give himself the added advantage of being thought dead.

This, however, seems unlikely, given the severity of Shepherd's and Jim Cummins' wounds.

George Shepherd was disturbed by all the bad publicity he received for "killing" JESSE JAMES. Shepherd claimed to have received more criticism for this one act than JESSE and his gang ever did for all of their misdeeds. In response to Shepherd's lament, John N. Edwards, William Quantrill's first biographer and the James brothers' chief apologist, pointed out that no one liked a traitor.

Although speculation swirled for weeks on the streets of Galena following George Shepherd's dramatic announcement, few sober minds continued to believe his tale.

A little more than a month after the incident, even Dr. Burns had been disabused. He admitted to a Joplin Herald reporter his role in treating Jim Cummins and surmised that one of the men who solicited his aid might have been JESSE JAMES.

However, if Dr. Burns' initial report that the men told him they'd seen a dead body being carried away is to be believed, it tends to lend credence to the opinion of those who suggested that the whole affray was arranged to make people think JESSE was dead.

Another possibility, scarcely considered in 1879, is that Shepherd sincerely thought he'd killed JESSE and that the outlaw, having survived the attempted assassination, seized upon an opportunity to stage his own death. The fact is, though, that 125 years later no one seems much closer to the whole truth of the bizarre episode than Dr. Burns was in December 1879.ww"(end)

(notice how Jesse said his brother Frank had died of consumption a few months earlier).

Jesse James Couldn't Have Been AKA Thomas Howard if this is true:

Written verbatim from The Letter Box, Golden West magazine, July 1968:

“Dear Editor,

I read your magazines Golden West, and The West, and I like your magazines and the stories of the Old West you publish. I have one question that perhaps some of your readers might be able to answer for me. I have lived at St. Joseph, Missouri, for several years now, and being interested in the story that Jesse James was killed here at St. Joseph, Missouri I was looking through the set of St. Joseph, Missouri, City Directories dating back to the year 1880, and I happened to come across the name and address of Thomas Howard in the 1882 St. Joseph City Directory; I then recalled that some books I had read about Jesse James had contained the statement that Jesse James was using the alias “Thomas Howard” in St. Joseph, Missouri when he was reported in the April, 1882 newspapers to have been killed in St. Joseph, Missouri on April 3, 1882.

What puzzled me was that as I looked through other old St. Joseph, Missouri, City Directories I found that Thomas Howard’s name and address are listed in the St. Joseph, Missouri, City Directories for the years 1882 up to the year 1900. I looked further in the old directories and found that Thomas Howard is listed in the City Directories up to the year 1930. Now, my question is this, if Jesse James was killed in St. Joseph, Missouri, by Robert Ford, on April the 3rd, 1882, then how is it that Thomas Howard is listed as a living resident of St. Joseph, Missouri from 1882 up to 1930? Maybe one reader of your magazines could throw some light on this matter for me. I am interested in the old West, and this matter has made me curious, as you might imagine.

Yours truly,

Mr. James Reid
Rt. #3
St. Joseph, Missouri”

Hoctor Contra James

(Click to View)

Mr. Emmett C. Hoctor conceived the excellent plan to exhume the reported grave of Jesse James in Kearney, Missouri for DNA testing in order to prove, or disprove, the age-old rumor that Bob Ford did not shoot him dead on April 3, 1882 and is not buried where history reports. He chose Prof. James E. Starrs to head the 1995 exhumation project, but now regrets his decision because of Prof. Starrs' unscientific and unprofessional handling of his "baby".

Jesse James' great-great-grandson likes gold too...visit Dan Duke's "The Gold Cache" for the latest news on the stock market.

** The Truth About Jesse James Book Review
by Mr. Emmett C. Hoctor **

(Click to view)

Mr. Emmett C. Hoctor conceived the excellent plan to exhume the reported grave of Jesse James in Kearney, Missouri for DNA testing in order to prove, or disprove, the age-old rumor that Bob Ford did not shoot him dead on April 3, 1882 and is not buried where history reports. He chose Prof. James E. Starrs to head the 1995 exhumation project, but now regrets his decision because of Prof. Starrs' unscientific and unprofessional handling of his "baby".