By 1869, the family had relocated to Missouri and settled just outside of Richmond in Ray County, which is close to about 25 miles from Kearney where the James home is located. Richmond was not unknown to the James boys either.
Charlie and Bob Ford met the James brothers around 1879, at the peak of their notoriety, providing plenty of fodder for the starstruck Bob Ford.
By this time, the loyal members of the gang were gone – all in one fell swoop with the failed Northfield, Minn. robbery in 1876. Now the gang members didn't have the same loyalty toward Frank and Jesse – they were out for themselves and it would be the downfall of all of them.
Jesse had come to the house of Martha Bolton, the older sister of Charlie and Bob, with Ed Miller. The Ford brothers were also acquainted with Jim Cummins, who knew Jesse and Frank from their days of riding with Quantrill, and whose sister married an uncle of Bob and Charlie's.
Soon Ed Miller was missing and Cummins suspected Jesse had killed him and he would be right. Jesse had become hostile toward Dick Liddil as well, and frankly, he became increasingly paranoid toward all of the men who had participated in the Blue Cut robbery on Sept. 7, 1881.
Meanwhile, Bob Ford had guilt on his conscience for having killed Wood Hite – Jesse and Frank's cousin. Well, maybe not on his conscience, but he sure had blood on his hands.
Jesse, becoming more and more paranoid, decided the old adage of keep your friends close and your enemies closer, was following it by having Charlie Ford live with him in St. Joseph. The house was very small and located at 1318 Lafayette Street. The house on Lafayette Street was on a hill and provided an excellent view for the outlaw, constantly looking over his shoulder – wanting to see the law coming when it finally did.
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| The monument located at 1318 Lafayette Street in St. Joseph, Missouri – the location of the house in which Jesse James was shot by Bob Ford, April 3, 1882. |
The man who had ruthlessly rode with Bloody Bill Anderson, shot and killed an assortment of men during a variety of robberies, often showed a different side to his personality. He was known for the mischievous side of his personality and loved to play tricks on his mother.
His children, Jesse Junior and Mary, mostly saw the fun side of their father. On Jesse's last Christmas Eve, he dressed up as Santa Claus and gathered some small toys and candy to entertain his kids.
A few weeks before he died in April 1882, Jesse brought a dog home for his kids.
And his wife Zee saw the loving side of Jesse James.
But the outlaw who was Jesse was still suffering from paranoia and delusions. On December 29, 1881, Charlie and Jesse headed for the Harbison place (Mattie Bolton's home) in Richmond to convince Dick Liddil to join them. Jesse tried to convince Liddil that he was planning another robbery and needed him.
Liddil couldn't be persuaded to join the two – his intuition kicked into overdrive and he accurately predicted that no one would ever see him alive again if he left with Charlie Ford and Jesse James.
The next night, Charlie and Jesse returned to St. Joseph. Shortly after that, Bob Ford met with Missouri Governor Crittenden and Clay County Sheriff Henry Timberlake. It was a secret meeting, where Ford told the men he knew where Jesse was and that he could assist in capturing their most wanted fugitive, but he wanted a pardon for Dick Liddil, who by now, had been captured and was in custody.
Ford also wanted the reward money – $10,000 apiece for Jesse and Frank – dead or alive, as Ford would later testify. However, Bob Ford would never see a dime of that money as the governor would later state that the reward was only if the brothers were captured alive.
By the beginning of spring 1882, Jesse had become very nervous and edgy. He no doubt needed money, members of the gang were dead, disappearing or in jail, and he had a family to support. To top it off, Frank was out of the picture and living in Maryland with his wife and son, blissfully far away from his conniving brother.
At some point, Jesse may have lightly considered retirement from the outlaw businesses as he inquired about some land in Lincoln, Nebraska – under his alias Tom Howard.
The inquiry into the land may have been just a fly-by-night whim on a day when Jesse felt he ought to get out of robbing people for a living and turn to a respectable life. Again, I revert back to the Peter Pan syndrome – he just didn't want to grow up. Everyone around him left over from the war had moved on and here he was surrounding himself by younger, less trustworthy men. Surely the writing was on the wall that the time had come to quit.
I truly believe Jesse knew the end was coming. I think he may have felt as if he was in a free-fall and couldn't pull out of it. The once slippery escape artist was like a carrot dangling for a horse coming up fast and furiously eager to bite it down.
It really only became a matter of how his life would end.
Bob Ford provided just the outlet for Jesse James to end his life.
After inquiring about the land in Nebraska, Jesse began talking about planning to rob a bank or banks in northeastern Kansas and asked Charlie if he knew anyone that could join the gang. Charlie suggested his younger brother, Bob.
After casing out a number of banks in Kansas, Charlie and Jesse headed to Richmond and picked up Bob Ford. Ford had had Sheriff Timberlake watching the Harbison house, but the weather happened to be so bad the day Jesse arrived, the sheriff was already gone. Bob told his sister that if she didn't hear from him within 10 days, he'd most likely be dead.
He had already committed himself to the governor and had failed to provide Jesse alive – so the next step would be a game of Russian roulette – which one, Bob or Jesse, would get the bullet?
On their way back to St. Joseph, the three men swung by the James farm in Kearney as Jesse wanted to see his half-brother, J.T. Samuel, who had recently been shot at a party in January and wasn't expected to live (he would survive).
While at the homestead, Jesse's mother told her son that "I don't like the look of the Fords, so be careful." Her words would prove to be prophetic.
After arriving back in St. Joseph, things had to be uncomfortable in the little house on Lafayette Street. There were two children and a wife, who probably was chaffing over having the Ford brothers in her house. The brothers were nervous and jumpy because they both fully expected to turn around one minute and find Jesse pointing a gun at them.
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| The house that Jesse was living in at the time of his death. It has been moved from its original location and is now located behind the Patee House in St. Joseph, Missouri and houses many James artifacts, the parlor set up the way it was on that hot April day in 1882. |
It has long been speculated that the gun was one Jesse had taken from Ed Miller after killing him.
On Sunday, April 2, 1882, Jesse, Zee, Jesse Junior and Mary headed off to church and returned home. The men began discussing plans to rob a bank in Platte City where a huge trial was taking place, effectually distracting law enforcement from focusing on the bank.
On Monday, April 3, all sat down to breakfast where the three men seemed extra cautious around each other. Jesse was his usual self, but all the while most likely watching the boys and calculating what their next move would be. Perhaps he had no plans to rob the Platte City Bank. Perhaps he felt he could get the boys out into the darkness of night and wipe them both out.
That may be precisely what Jesse thought that morning until he saw the headlines on the newspaper showing that Dick Liddil was in custody and had surrendered. He knew Liddil would sing like a canary to the authorities and it would only be a matter of time before they came looking for him.
I can almost imagine the lump settling into the pit of his stomach. His palms beginning to sweat, the skin prickling on the back of his neck, his eyes blinking more rapidly than usual, his breath coming in short little bursts.
The men went out to the stable and tended to the horses. Charlie would later testify that Jesse complained that it was warm – April in Missouri can go three ways: cold, perfect or warm. There's no telling how hot the day truly was, but shortly after, the men went into the parlor, and Jesse took his coat off and threw it on the sofa. He opened the front door of the house and looked out and then oddly announced that he would remove his gun belt so as not to be seen wearing his gun "inside" his house – raising suspicion in anyone gazing at the house.
In an even more bizarre twist to the already strange day, Jesse looked up at the wall and fixated on a picture. He said it needed straightening and dusting. He climbed up on a chair and turned his back on the two brothers, whom he knew were armed.
Charlie and Bob could hardly believe their good fortune. They both drew on Jesse and took aim. Charlie winked at his brother, but Bob cocked his gun first and Jesse, hearing the click of the gun, began to turn his head as the gun went off.
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| The parlor of Jesse's house in which he died. Top left is a picture "In God We Trust" that is similar to the one he may have tried to dust that day. Below it is a hole in the wall, from what I do not know, but it is NOT attributed to the shot Jesse took. That bullet remained in his head. The picture in the center depicts the shooting. (First three photos by Liz Johnson) |
The ball struck the infamous Jesse James in the back of the head and most likely, and logically, his head pitched forward and hit the wall due to the concussion and then he fell to the floor – bleeding profusely.
Zee, hearing the shot, ran into the parlor and found Jesse lying on the floor. She looked up at Charlie first, who stood there shuffling his feet and said, "a pistol had accidentally gone off."
Zee replied, "Yes, I guess it went off on purpose."
The Ford brothers ran to the telegraph office to send wires to Governor Crittenden and Sheriff Timberlake. Then they used a brand new device called a "telephone" to alert City Marshal Enos Craig that the infamous outlaw Jesse James was dead.
Neither Ford brother had any inkling that they would later be arrested and charged with murder. They believed they were preventing their own murders and had ridded the world of a wanted man. And there sure thought they were going to be $10,000 richer.
For the years I've been studying Jesse James, I still find it hard to believe the man allowed himself to be taken down so easily. True he was 7 years older than when he was on the run after the failed Northfield, Minn. raid. But he was still Jesse James with a whole lot of knowledge under his belt about how to escape those who want to kill him.
On the one hand, I don't think he would have knowingly exposed his wife and children to his death the way it played out, but then again – I do believe he orchestrated his own death ... sort of a suicide by cop option a hundred-plus years before the phrase was ever coined.
I think that he was suffering from lead poisoning from the shot he took to the right lung in 1865 at the end of the war, making him paranoid and delusional. I believe he was weakening by the day from the years on the run, the lifestyle he led and again, from the effects of the lead still in his body.
I think he wanted to put an end to the crazy, on-the-run lifestyle he had forced his wife and children to live for so many years. In fact, at this point, neither Jesse Junior nor Mary knew their real names and they would not learn that their father was the infamous outlaw Jesse James until after his death.
I truly believe that Jesse thought Zee, Jesse Junior and Mary would be better of without him, and so he took his gun belt off that hot April morning, fully expecting one of the Ford brothers to kill him.
Were Jesse taken down by a gang member, then he would go down in a blaze of glory – shot in the head while his back was turned, with his family in the next room. He didn't die at the hands of law enforcement or during the committing of a robbery.
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| Bob Ford posed with the pistol he shot Jesse with shortly after the murder. |
Just why did Bob Ford, a self-professed admirer of Jesse James want to kill the object of his obsession we will never know. Perhaps it was self-preservation or perhaps he felt he would obtain even more fame than Jesse ever had by killing him.
The connection between Bob Ford and Jesse James has always reminded me of the death of John Lennon at the hands of Mark David Chapman, who allegedly killed Lennon to become famous himself.
One thing is sure, Jesse Woodson James remains an enigma 131 years after his death at the hands of Bob Ford.
Jesse Woodson James: September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882
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