Frank James

Frank James (1898)

Alexander Franklin James (born January 10, 1843 in Kearney , Clay County , Missouri , † February 18, 1915 ) was an American bandit and older brother of Jesse James . Together with the Younger brothers, the brothers formed the famous James Younger gang , which were responsible for numerous bank and train robberies in the United States in the late 19th century .

biography

The brothers Jesse and Frank James in 1872

Frank James fought in the American Civil War as early as 1861 at the age of eighteen . In 1863 he joined the so-called " Bushwackers ", a guerrilla force that fought the Union forces in western Missouri . These fights were fought with great violence, not least because all those involved came from the area and some neighbors fought against each other. Frank and Jesse's stepfather, Reuben Samuel, was tortured by the local militia hunting down Frank James and his gang. Frank James joined another guerrilla force, the " Quantrill Raiders " and took on 1863 massacre of 200 men and children in Lawrence ( Kansas in part).

In 1864 his 16 year old brother Jesse joined him and they fought together against sympathizers of the Union. They served among others under the commanders Bloody Bill Anderson and Archie Clement . In September 1864 they took part in the Centralia massacre , in which 22 unarmed Union soldiers were dragged from a train and executed. In 1868 , Frank and Jesse James had teamed up with their old friend Cole Younger and robbed the Russellville bank .

In the years that followed, the James Younger gang carried out numerous bank and train robberies until a failed robbery on the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota on September 7, 1876 led to the gang being broken up. Two of its members died in a gun battle and the surviving members of the gang, including the James brothers and brothers Jim, Bob and Cole Younger, split up during the escape. Frank and Jesse fled to Nashville, where they adopted false names. Frank James has led a normal life since then, while his brother Jesse formed a new gang in 1879 and carried out more robberies. In 1881 the two brothers had to flee again. Frank James separated from his brother and settled in Virginia . Meanwhile, Jesse moved into a house in Saint Joseph , near his birthplace.

Five months after the violent death of his brother Jesse in 1882, Frank James went to Jefferson City, Missouri, where he had a meeting with then Missouri Governor Thomas Theodore Crittenden. Here he officially and voluntarily surrendered himself to the authorities with the words that he had been hunted for 21 years and had always led a life on the run, now he has had enough of it. However, James also surrendered because it had been agreed that he would not be held accountable for the Northfield bank robbery. He was convicted of only two bank robberies and spent three weeks in Independence, Missouri prison and one year in custody in Gallatin, after which he was released and moved to Oklahoma, where he lived with his mother.

Over the next 30 years of his life, James worked in various jobs, including as a shoe seller, then as a ticket validator at a burlesque theater in St. Louis, where James was advertised as a person in order to attract more customers. They used the phrase "Come and have your ticket validated by the legendary Frank James." He also worked as a telegraph operator in St. Joseph, Missouri, and in the last years of his life he returned to his family farm, where his brother Jesse was buried. He offered tours of the farm for 25 cents. He died peacefully on February 18, 1915 at the age of 72. He was buried in the Hill Part Cemetery, which is located in Independence.

Individual evidence

Countless books have appeared on Jesse and his brother Frank James, but few are so well researched that evidence could be distinguished from myth. Below are some of these books:

• Settle, William A., Jr .: Jesse James Was His Name, or, Fact and Fiction Concerning the Careers of the Notorious James Brothers of Missouri , University of Nebraska Press, 1977
• Yeatman, Ted P .: Frank and Jesse James: The Story Behind the Legend , Cumberland House, 2001
• Stiles, TJ: Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War , Alfred A. Knopf, 2002
• Hobsbawm, Eric J .: Bandits , Pantheon, 1981
• Slotkin, Richard: Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America , Atheneum, 1985
• Stone, AC, Starrs, JE, Stoneking, M .: Mitochondrial DNA analysis of the presumptive remains of Jesse James , in: Journal of Forensic Sciences 46, (2001): 173-176
• Thelen, David, Paths of Resistance: Tradition and Dignity in Industrializing Missouri , Oxford University Press, 1986
• White, Richard: Outlaw Gangs of the Middle Border: American Social Bandits , in: Western Historical Quarterly 12, no. 4 (October 1981): 387-408