Jesse James lived to be 103: Part 1 of 4 ~ A. Ralph Epperson ~ (63 min)

this is a photograph of Jesse James perhaps America's most famous outlaw literally hundreds of movies and books have been written and produced discussing his past this presentation will present another narrative contrary to what his terms of the past have offered us because Jesse James lived to be 103 years old he was born in 1847 and died in 1951 obviously this is contrary to the official story but I will be documenting this story because Jesse James was a major and I mean a major player in America's history from 1865 to 1925 so please please let me briefly reveal what my research for 45 years has uncovered I first heard about the claims made by J Frank Dalton who in 1948 claimed to be the real Jesse James this is the Lawton Oklahoma Constitution newspaper a bathe of 19th 1948 which was the day that it was announced that the real Jesse James had surfaced because this man calling himself J Frank Dalton was the real Jesse James at the age of 100 I started looking into this man story and I now believe that he was telling the truth let me start by saying that Jesse James was not not murdered by Bob Ford Jesse shot someone else and told the new widow to tell the sheriff that the dead man on the floor was Jesse James and that Jesse was living under an alias the picture on the right is not a picture of a young Jesse James this is a picture of the young Jesse James the exclamation of the body of Jesse in 1995 that concluded it was him was a total fraud an example of a total abuse of scientific principle because the exclamation was not conducted on the body of Jesse James during his life jesse was called one of a hundred who ruled America one of a hundred who owned America and their richest man in the world Clark County Nevada with Las Vegas as the county seat is named after one of Jesse's 73 aliases William Andrews Clark and I would hazard a guess that only a few of the citizens living in Las Vegas have any idea that this is true but it is jesse was directly involved in the assassinations of four American presidents Abram Lincoln 1865 James Garfield 1881 William McKinley 1901 and warren g harding 1923 yes Jesse James one of the 100 men who ruled America was directly involved in the assassinations of these four presidents John Wilkes Booth the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln did not die a short time after the assassination as has been recorded by history he was allowed to escape Washington DC by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton a short time later Jesse James poisoned mr. booth in Enid Oklahoma in 1903 38 years after the assassination this is a major story because both men were members of a secret society known as the Knights of the Golden Circle the organization that planned the Civil War of 1861 to 1865 many years before it started Jesse was directly involved in the plans to start a second civil war after the European and American bankers that created the Knights of the Golden Circle did not achieve their goal and to start to struggle again between the north and the south Jesse James was right in the middle of the case of the Ku Klux Klan in 1867 Jesse James and 13 others passed out repeating rifles to the Sioux Indians led by Sitting Bull before the 1882 Battle of the Little Bighorn River those of the 100 who ruled America wanted to make certain that Colonel George Custer did not survive the battle and the reason was because the 100 feared he would run for the presidency of the United States and win and Colonel Custer was murdered by one of his Indian Scouts during the battle and then that scout was murdered before the Bertil the battle ended these are only a few of the incredible images that my research has uncovered I am also convinced that the viewer will have difficulty in accepting the statements as being true but I am only briefing briefly summarizing them now in hopes that the viewer will wish to continue through the entire presentation before you decide whether the material is the truth the documentation for all that I will present will be shown during the presentation I want you to know that I consider the story of Jesse James to be the story of a generation mr. Dold made a challenge to future historians by saying this the historians still haven't got it right maybe someday somebody will come along and set the record straight may I now suggest that you consider this presentation as my attempt at doing just that I have spent 45 years of research in this man's story because I want to set the record straight Jesse James lived to be 103 the true story of the life of America's most famous outlaw part one of for a presentation of publius productions my name is Ralph Epperson and I will be the one presenting this information let me say first that for the sake of any dating material in this presentation it was delivered on December the 15th 2017 next I would like you to know that this PowerPoint presentation and the program does not allow me to speak during a slot change so this presentation might sound a little disjointed but that is the way this program works it might be helpful for you to know a little about me and my background before you watch the material I will be discussing I am a graduate of the University of Arizona and have studied history political science and economics for over for for over 40 years since graduation I have written four nonfiction history books and have been pleased that two of my books are being published and distributed in five European nations my fourth book is entitled Jesse James a United States Senator and is the foundation for the presentation you will be viewing I first became interested in the story of Jesse in about 1973 when I read my first book about the life of this outlaw I have studied as much of the major material in his life as I can find and I am Amba and I am now convinced that very few know his true story and that is why I am presenting this research on this DVD so that you can know that the famous outlaw did not die in 1882 as history has recorded but lived to be a hundred and three years old and between 1882 when he supposedly died in 1951 when he really died Jesse was a major figure in America's past I was present at the excavation of the body of J Frank Doel the man who claimed to be the real Jesse James in Granbury Texas in the year 2000 that did not find Jesse's body and I have been very fortunate to have met and talked to many of the people researching this story including some of Jesse's relatives Jesse Woodson James was born on September the 5th 1847 as the second son of Reverend Robert Sallee James a Baptist minister and Zerelda Cole James their first son was born on January the 10th 1843 and he was named Alexander Franklin James but his commonly called Frank James both of these sons were born on the James farm near Kearney Missouri about 20 miles northeast of Kansas City Robert the husband of Zarrella and the father of Frank Jesse and the other sister Susan left the family in 1851 there are some differing explanations on how and why he lived some historians have discussed that he left the family on April the 12th of that year to go gold prospecting in California after the gold rush of 1848 the authors of the book entitled Jesse James was one of his names suggested that he left because her elder did not share Roberts enthusiasm for the ministry this is a clue that there was some discord in their marriage and that Robert possibly was leaving because his marriage was in trouble this is how Marley Brent discussed it in her book entitled Jesse James the man and the myth in early spring 1851 Robert James surprised Zerelda by informing her that he wanted to follow his brother Drury Woodson James west to the California Gold Fields and he joined his close friend William Stigers on the journey to California on April the 12th 1851 other writers have suggested that Zerelda was not faithful to Robert and that he had discovered that Jesse was not his son after all but rather the result of the rel distressed with the local doctor this idea that Jesse and Frank were not brothers but only half-brothers was repeated in this book entitled Jesse James the outlaw this is what this author wrote Jesse and Frank were only half-brothers the book written by JW Buell entitled to bro the border outlaws published in 1880 provided some confirmation and added one more important detail the father of Jesse was a physician in Clay County Missouri this book entitled Jesse and Frank James told how Robert Jesse's father and relatives up and died Robert became ill from food poisoning or some type of fever in a Placerville California gold camp and died suddenly on August the 18th 1851 at the age of 32 he was buried in an unmarked grave one of the reasons that this book said that he was buried in an unmarked grave because Jesse and Frank went to Placerville years later to locate his grave but were unable to find it one other possible explanation of why Robert left his family could be this Robert James was as I said a Christian minister the pastor of his church and he was highly respected in his community let us presume that he discovered that giralda had conceived Jesse outside of their marriage vows it is quite conceivable that he would have felt disgraced in the eyes of the church he pastored and in the city of Kearny where he lived so he possibly decided to go to Placerville as a way of relieving his guilt about having married a woman who had an affair outside of their marriage while they were married it is certainly possible that he asked someone in Placerville to notify his family and Carney that he had died when he hadn't and then he would assume another identity this would explain the fact that his two sons could not find his grave in Placerville and it was because he had not died in Placerville but faked his death so that he could could I could continue living we shall examine the evidence that Jesse James later faked his own death at least twice and I wonder whether this is where he first learned the tactic few in America have not heard the name of Jesse James yes perhaps this nation's most famous outlaw having been as I said before the subject of countless books novels movies and documentaries in fact Brad Pitt recently released a movie about Jesse so his appeal today is still very real jesse has been made out to be a folk hero larger than life especially during the time he was alive the people of Missouri the state he grew up in had been told during this time that he was a Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor one author I read said that jesse was a good man turned bad by the times story circulated about how he helped the widows of fallen soldiers southern soldiers in the Civil War and how he robbed the banks and trains belonging to northerners who the citizens of the South felt had been stealing from them after the war had ended press the greatest example of this is this story often repeated by those who believe that Jessie was a good man this story has many versions but I believe this one was perhaps the one most commonly told the story is Jesse and Frank returning from the Civil War they needed to water their horses and stopped at the farm belonging to a widow of a Confederate soldier she was crying because the sheriff or the banker were coming later that day to collect $300 in back mortgage payments that the widow did not have Jesse feeling compassion for the widows new needs gave her three dollars to give to them when they appeared they recommended that she obtained a receipt from the banker for the money after she had given it to him he and Frank then rode a little distance from the farm and hid in some bushes the James brothers watched as the two men rode up and visited with the widow they watched as the banker collected his $3 from the widow issued early receipt and then joined the sheriff for their return to the city Missy Anne Frank stepped into their path robbed the banker of the $3 and then allowed both of them to leave unharmed this is a book entitled a complete and authentic life of Jesse James written by Carl Brienne and on page 45 he quoted President Harry Truman from an interview he gave on March the 27th 1949 Jesse James was not actually a bad man at heart I have studied his life carefully and I come from his part of the country I mean that both the President and James lived in Missouri now back to mr. a President Truman jesse was a modern-day Robin Hood stole for the rich and gave to the poor in general is not a bad policy we shall discuss whether or not Jessie stole from the rich to give to the poor a few minutes and why President Truman would in essence approve of this outlaws stealing a little later taking of the property of one even though he was rich to give to another is called stealing and it was called stealing in the 1880s as well as in 1949 but his comments are somewhat typical of the type of portrayal of the James brothers that the people of the time received from a generally friendly press Jesse were portrayed in what had been called dime novels like this one that did much to build his reputation among the American people many of these writers amplified his exploits and made him appear to be the Robin Hood of the day history has recorded another incident that built enormous sympathy for Jesse and Frank it was on the night of January the 22nd 75 that history has recorded that the Pinkerton national detective agency had thrown a firebomb into the James family farmhouse the claim that their motive was to flush Jesse and Frank out of the house so that they could be arrested there were some disagreement amongst historians about whether either a book of the James brothers were in the house that night I would say that most believed that they were not but in any event the bomb exploded and blew off the lower right arm of Zerelda Jesse's mother and killed Jesse's half-brother seven-year-old Archie Samuel the son of Zerelda and her third husband dr. Reuben Samuel notice in this photograph that duck that mrs. James had placed a piece of black cloth over her missing right arm it is now known that the Pinkerton agents intended to burn the house down during that raid Allan Pinkerton the founder of the agency shown here to the right of President Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter dated December the 28th 1874 that has been copied in its entirety by Ted Yeatman in his book entitled Frank and Jesse James part of that letter reads as follows above everything destroy the house here the logs will burn the house down so the intent was not only to capture the James brothers it was also to destroy the house that the James family lived in obviously both attempts failed they did not burn the house down nor did they capture or killed the James brothers and I will explain later why the Pinkerton Detective Agency never captured Frank and Jesse but as a result of this act public sentiment turned against the Pinkertons and in favor of Jesse and his brother it was not until 1992 that official US government records were examined and they revealed that the bomb the privately owned Pinkerton agency meaning it wasn't a federal agency used in the James home had been secured at a u.s. arsenal in Rock Island Illinois that means that the bomb that was thrown into the James home was obtained from the US government the use of government military materials against the citizens of the United States became the subject of a law passed June the 18th 1887 just about three years after this incident and it was called the Posse Comitatus Act this law makes it illegal for the US government to use military forces or equipment against the people of the United States the army cannot have anything to do with civil law enforcement of course this law was passed after the bombing of the james home but it showed that legislators later decided such an act as committed by the u.s. arsenal would have been illegal if the Pinkerton bombing had been perpetrated a few years later now let me discuss the shooting of Jesse James in 1882 the official story recorded in history has it that Jesse James was living in this house in st. Joseph Missouri with the wife and two children this is a family portrait of Zerelda James and her two children Jessie Edwards James and Mary Susan James notice that her first name was by the oddest of coincidences Zerelda the same game as the mother of Jesse and Frank history has nicknamed her Z to separate her from the other her elder the story has it that Jessie was living on an alias of Tom Howard and on April the 3rd 1882 a man by the name of Bob Ford shot him while visiting with Jessie in the living room or that helps the third man in this drawing is Bob's brother Charlie Ford notice that the artist had shown that Jesse was not wearing his gun belt and his pistol while he was ending on the chair and secondly that he has drawn what appears to be his gun belt and pistol on the table in the living room this is an accord with official version of this shooting that states that Jesse was unarmed during a shooting and that his belt and weapon were in the living room this is a picture of 21 year old Bob Ford a member of this gang who according to the story was the man who shot Jesse James that day mr. Ford is shown holding the gun that he used in the shooting and he later testified that he received the gun from Jesse himself just a short time before he shot him I will offer an explanation as to why Jess would give him the gun used to shoot him a little later according to the official story mr. Ford shot Jesse in the back of the head and then he shot him as Jesse was standing on this chair either dusting off a picture or straightening it this is a photograph of the actual wall in the James house in st. Joseph Missouri the house is now a museum and this is what you see when you enter the living room you will notice that there is a chair against the wall partially shown in the blue frame in the lower left-hand corner of the picture it is presumed that the music didn't put that there to show the viewer that this was where the chair was that Jesse was standing on before you were shot however there is an obvious flaw in this story jesse was tall enough to reach the painting without standing on a chair in other words he wouldn't have needed to stand on share to either dust or straighten the picture this is the wall once again and the green rectangle to the left top is over a glass frame that covers the bullet hole allegedly made after they exited Jesse's head this is a closer look showing the bullet hole underneath the picture that jesse was supposedly straightening or dusting notice that the museum has left it a little lifted a little out of alignment showing that they apparently believe that the picture needed straightening by Jesse at the time of the shooting and this is a close-up of the glass frame and the bullet rollin itself the claim is that previous tourists had gouged out the plasterboard around the hole as a souvenir and that the museum moved to protected by covering it under a glass frame but Bob Ford testified that the bullet did not exit Jesse's head and only a few historians attempt to discuss how a bullet hole could be made for bullet that did not exit the head Jesse James and the owner explanation that I can give is that someone else put that bullet hole in the wall perhaps at a later time because there is no other explanation for this hole if Bob Ford's recollections are correct this is a close-up of the man that was shot that day lying in a casket several photographs were taken and this is the close-up of his head you will notice a small black mark to the side of his left eye those who believe that Jesse was shot in the back of the head explained that this is a mark made as Jesse's head hit the wall after being shot from the rear if this was an exit wound to explain the hole in the wall it would be much larger than that shown bullets in those days were soft and expanded if they hit bone so this if this was an exit wound it would have been much larger but this is a small mark as you can see this is the photograph of the wall that we just looked at and you will see that the James Museum has put a frame picture on the wall near the chair and the bullet hole in the wall shown inside the red rectangle and this is a close-up of that painting and it shows Jesse falling away from the wall after his head had been hit by the bullet this is in accord with the way that Bob Ford testified about how the event happened and this is the way the official story has been told Jesse had been hit in the back of the head and he fell away from the wall the bullet exited his head and hit the wall to leave a hole in it for all to see but Bob Ford's testimony was that the bullet did not exit the head and the supposed exit wound is too small to amend an exit wound so the bullet bullet did not exit the head but it had to because there's this puzzling hole in the wall and the painting put there by the James Museum shows the body falling away from the hall the wall but his head hit the wall to caused the small black mark shown on the body and this confusing and contradictory story is still away the official story is being told the April 5th 1882 Daily Gazette the paper in the town of st. Joseph Missouri where does he was shot published a transcript of the inquest into the death of Jesse James the wife of Jesse gave this testimony she was asked question was he meeting Jesse armed when asleep answered yes sir he had pistols under his head always questioned when her husband was killed was he armed no sir the pistols were lying on the bed under his coat this is once again the drawing of the shooting it was made around the time of that shoot and as you can see the artist put the gun on the table and not on the bed one can only wonder why the artist did not did this why the artist did this when zis testimony was available for anyone see this is from the book entitled the many faces of Jesse James and it discusses this story in some detail because Jesse strange behavior has puzzled historians for over a hundred years numerous theories as to why Jesse would have removed his two guns turned his back to the forge stood on a chair and chosen to dust or straight a picture have been debated for more than 100 years critics of the official story have pointed out several more flaws in this story jesse was a wanted criminal and there were people willing to kill him in order to garner the reputation of having been the one who killed Jesse James secondly there was a $10,000 reward on him dead or alive so one could reasonably conclude that Jesse would never take his guns off during his waking hours one would presume that it would want to keep them close by in the event someone made an attempt on his life next it has been reported that Bob and his brother Charlie were members of the gang which means that Jesse knew that either man was willing to break the law and who think that Jesse would turn his back on two men who might be willing to kill him for the reward money is to test the limits of credulity but there is one fact of history that has evaded most historians about this entire story this is Ola Everhart shown here in this photograph taken for a newspaper article in 1984 you'll notice that she is holding two posters showing that Jesse and Frank were wanted dead or alive with $20,000 reward money for each in this case it might be an appropriate time to talk about the reward for the capture of Jesse and Frank I'll return to mrs. Everhart story in a few minutes I'm not certain that they robbed all of the banks and trains that history has claimed that they did and here is the reason why Jesse and Frank were being touted as folk heroes by a very supportive media who were exaggerating their exploits to a willing public audience they were being called the Robin Hood's of Missouri as the claim was being made that they were robbing from the rich to give to the poor and him and many people living in Missouri after the Civil War felt that the northerners were coming to their state to steal from the citizens of Missouri now I would presume that any other bank or train robber would not want to get caught during their holdup so they would announce to the people that they were being robbed by the James Gang hoping that the authorities and the robbery victims would go soft on them and looked the other way after the robbery and that those being robbed would resist so it is my opinion that the James Gang was not responsible for all of the robberies attributed to them by the media in fact during these days Jessie often wrote letters to newspapers claiming that he and his gang were innocent of a particular robbery and it has been rare in my research that I found other researchers looking into this Jesse James story pointing this out while I am here I wanted to discuss the claim the Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor this is of course Errol Flynn who was the Robin Hood in that classic movie I will ask the question who were the rich people Robin Hood was stealing from I have watched the classic Robin Hood movie starring Errol Flynn many times and the only person that Robin stole from was the King of England and his tax collector the Sheriff of Nottingham Robin Hood was not stealing from the rich he was taking back that which had been stolen from the people by the king who was confiscating their wealth in the form of excessive taxation collected by the Sheriff of Nottingham and his minions taking back that which has been stolen is not stealing it is getting your property back and each of us has this right to ask the police to return it after they arrest the thief and Jesse was not stealing from the rich when he held up a train or a bank he was stealing from the people of Missouri of all levels who either had their deposits in the bank or were passengers on the train and I am totally unfamiliar with any evidence that he ever gave any of the money he and his gang stole to the port other than the story I discussed about the widow who didn't have the $300 to pay her mortgage now let me return to mrs. Everard she claimed to be a third cousin to just two James because she was related to one of the sisters of Zerelda James the mother of Jesse and Frank in the book was entitled the truth about Jesse she makes the claim that Bob and Charlie Ford were cousins to Jesse James if that is true all jesse had to do was ask assassins to be part of a scheme to kill off the name of Jesse James so that he could live under a variety of aliases for the rest of his life the movie that Brad Pitt made on Jesse's just a short time ago did not attempt to explain the bizarre behavior of Jesse on the day of the shooting so they give clues that Jesse had planned the whole event so that he could commit suicide by having Bob Ford shoot him I have studied this Jesse James story for over 45 years and I can say that there's not one reputable researcher in the Jesse James story that has ever even hinted that Jesse planned on committing suicide I will say this the fact that none of the official story makes sense will not be debated any longer if America looks at the evidence that I have accumulated in my research because I think I have answers to these questions and I will be answering them in the material that follows another question left unanswered by the average historian writing about the story is why Jessie's brother Frank did not seek revenge on the man who had shot his brother in cold blood this was the traditional method of avenging the murder of a family member in the Old West one writer wrote it was reported that Frank J's was in st. Joseph's determined on an act of vengeance on the murderer of his brother and had actually viewed the corpse at the Undertaker's when rather interesting comment about this is offered in a booklet entitled the truth about Jesse James by Rudy - really and he wrote in 1890 which was the worst eight years after the shooting of Jesse in 1890 Frank James was seen with Bob Ford in Creede Colorado we're Bob it open to saloon and it's all with the help of Frank James is it possible that the brother of Jessie would have associated with Bob Ford the man who had murdered his brother I hardly think so but there is an explanation that I will offer in a few minutes this is Missouri governor Thomas Crittenden whose son wrote a book entitled the Crittenden memoirs after the governor had served his one term as governor the son invited a man named Frank Dalton to write a chapter on the outlaws in Missouri and he added some interesting details about the shooting Jessie this connection between a man named Dalton and the Crittenden family is interesting because various writers knew the Thomas Crittenden was a boy who boyhood a boyhood friend of Jesse when they were growing up so this connection lends credibility to the theory the J Frank Dalton was in truth the real Jesse James because the governor who knew the real Jesse because of their boyhood friendship Rudy truly in his booklet points out that Jesse had donated $35,000 to mr. crittendon's successful campaign for governor and that it could be argued that the governor told Jesse a favor so if Jesse asked him to assist in a scheme to kill another man who according to some researchers was already stating that he was the outlaw Jesse James it is certainly conceivable that the governor would do what he could to assist because he owed a favor to his boy hound boyhood friend however there's another connection between the two men besides being friends as children this is volume 1 of a four volume set of books entitled ten thousand famous formations this book was published by McCoy publishing and Masonic Supply Company of Richmond Virginia and noticed that the book has a foreword a former president Harry Truman who was a past master of the Missouri lodge of research meaning he was a member of the Masons this is an official portrait of the president dressed in his Masonic attire mr. Truman was a 33rd degree Mason the highest degree attainable by any Mason and please remember this one that is only opened by invitation this is page 267 of the volume and you will see that governor Crittenden was also a member of the Masonic Lodge Jesse James was a member of the Masons and at some time in his life he also became a 33rd degree Mason by invitation I shall discuss this a little later in another context if jesse was a 33rd degree Mason when he approached the governor and the governor was a 32nd degree Mason the governor would have to do what he could to assist Jesse because of the oath that the governor took when he applied to become a 4th degree Mason on his way to the 32nd Masonic brothers take oath to protect their Masonic Brothers the governor would assist his masonic brother Jesse even with his desire to murder a man let me repeat that the governor would assist his masonic brother Jesse even when Jesse told him he wants to murder a man J Frank dogg reported that it was he who gave the $10,000 for the reward money to the governor for the shooting of Jesse James in addition several james researchers have reported that Bob Ford the man who was going to shoot Jessie met with the governor before the shooting date presumably to work out details on how he would turn himself in and receive a pardon from the governor and collect the reward money after the shooting of Jesse the foot brothers were charged with murder but they were soon pardoned by the governor just as it was planned mr. dog reported that the sheriff in st. Joseph Missouri sent a telegram to Zerelda Jesse's mother asking her to come and identify the body of her son he said that their elder looked at the dead man and said gentlemen you've made a mistake this is not my son Zerelda later recanted her story and stated that she did not recognize Jessie the first time because he had a beard it is known that Jesse had been in her home in Kearney just a matter of a few weeks before the shooting so it appears as if the willda would have known that the man with the beard was not her son when she first saw the body and that her original statement was the truth now why would she lie like that and say that the man was her son when she knew that he wasn't could it be the thousand dollars then we'll have Dalton's friends in the room gave her to tell the sheriff that this was her son maybe so there were other clues that something was wrong in the details of the shooting story when the prosecutor in the coroner's inquest asked Z James this question she gave a very strange response question where is Frank James answer I don't know question is Frank living answer I don't know the official story says that Z had been married to just for eight years and she claims she did not know whether her brother-in-law Frank was living her or dead it is certainly conceivable that the reason she answered this way was because she did not know Frank James and she must have been afraid of getting caught with a lie if she had given the wrong answer meaning she would answer that he was dead when he was in truth alive so she took the easy way out and said that she did not know within days of the shooting people were claiming that Jessie was not shot in that house one such witness was John Pierce a neighbor of the man living as Jesse James in st. Joseph Missouri he reported that he positively knew that Jesse was not killed on April 3rd 1882 he said that he had learned the day before that a man by the name of Charlie Bigelow was going to be killed so this is the first clue there's someone other than the real Jesse was going to be shot he also stated that he had seen Jesse James alive a few hours later this also has an explanation there is a reason all of these questions about the strange details of the shooting have not been answered and that is because the truth about the shooting of Jesse James has not been told and it is now time to tell it so let me now show you why this shooting did not take place as officially claimed it is now time and I'm going to do what I can to tell you this is once again a copy of the Lawton Oklahoma Constitution newspaper for the date of May 19th 1948 and as you can see the headline reads Jesse James is alive in Lawton it was a few days before that a man called J Frank Dalton walked into the newspaper and claimed that he was the real Jesse James he said that he was hundred years old and had been living under 72 aliases since his supposed death in 1882 the newspaper aside to reporters to the story and they checked it out the best they could and concluded that the man was telling the truth and those two men were Frank Hall and Lindsay Witten their order booklet entitled Jesse James rides again to explain how they became convinced that mr. Dalton was in truth the real Jesse the story went nationwide and hundreds of people showed up in Lawton to see the old man the first book I read on the subject was entitled Jesse James was one of his names and had told much of the story that mr. Dalton was telling I would like to quote four of the 41 sworn statements cited in their book from the people who talked directly to mr. Dalton and who testified that he was the real Jesse Woodson James the first of the four said after talking to him about happenings of the past I'm sure this man is Jesse James another said I knew Frank and Jesse as a youth I swear this old gunman is Jesse James the next one said the way he answered all the questions I put him some of them back to 1864 caused me to firmly believe he is the real Jesse James and the last one said he knew me at once and he answered all of my questions it's him so there were many eyewitnesses who actually met with Dalton and they were encouraged to probe the man's memory and many of them confirmed that he was who he claimed to be because he had remembered details that only the real Jesse Woodson James would know even those that had occurred many decades earlier I must admit the Dalton could very well have been an impostor but there's one basic reason that I do not think that he was and that is the fact that he knew things from the past that only the real Jesse James would know and I just cannot believe that an impostor would know those insignificant details there were at least two well-known Western personalities who also said that mr. Dalton was indeed the real Jesse James one was calamity jane she quoted a letter she had written on November 30th 1889 in her book entitled calamity James diary and letters that read I met up with Jesse James not long ago he was killed in 1882 his brother swore that the body that was in the coffin was not his but it was another man he is passing under the name of Dalton but he couldn't fool me I knew all the don'ts and he sure ain't one of them it sounds to me like she had talked directly to J Frank Dalton himself and the other one was William H Bonnie better known as Billy the Kid history has recorded that Billy had been shot at the age of 22 on July the 4th 1881 by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner New Mexico but in fact Billy lived a full life as brushy Bill Roberts until he died in 1950 he claimed that he had lived next door to Jesse for six years of his life this is a picture of Dalton that is one hundred and second birthday party in Granbury Texas and the man in the middle is brushy Bill Roberts the man many believed was the real Billy the Kid and it has been recorded that both of these men knew the other man's secret it is an interesting sidelight to Billy's story that history has recorded that Sheriff Pat Garrett never collected the reward money Billy's death after he had shot him it is certainly possible that Garrett did not want to defraud the government of the money because he had not killed the real Billy the Kid and one of the ways that mr. Dalton was confirming the fact that he was Jesse James is in the choice of the name he was using they Frank Dalton the Jay stood for his real name Jesse Frank would be of course Frank James his brother and dolt would be the name of his mother Zerelda many historians have said that Zarrella was never known as a rail des dalton but researchers have found the evidence that she was born into the Dalton family and was adopted by the coal family just a few years after her birth so this might have been the reason that this man selected the name a J Frank Dalton and this could also be another cure clue that J Frank Dalton was the real Jesse James it would be presumed that Jesse learned that his mother's real name was Darrell dad Dalton and that Zerelda coal was her adopted name while growing up and that single and that and that since no one else knew that fact it would tend to indicate that he was the real Jesse James so now let me show you why this shooting in st. Joseph Missouri did not take place as officially described mr. Dalton took his Lester's back to the shooting of 1882 and told anyone who would listen how he had planned the murder of the man claiming to be Jesse James Dalton said that the man he shot was named Charlie Bigelow Dalton claimed that he shot him in the face as he entered the barn adjacent to the house early one morning and then dragged the body into the living room he then told mrs. Bigelow that she was to tell the sheriff when he showed up that the dead man on the floor was in truth the famous outlaw Jesse James he then said he gave her $15,000 for her story and she did as she was paid he told her to change the names of her two children her seven-year-old son was to become Jesse Edwards James and her daughter was to become Mary Susan James Jessie Edwards James grew up and lived his life under the name of Jesse James jr. that is him on the left dressed as his father Jesse James in the silent movie he starred in entitled Jesse James under the black flag Jesse's wrote Preston Jesse James jr. wrote this book entitled Jesse James my father in 1899 because he felt that all of the books written after that date had done what he called a cruel injustice to the memory of his father Jesse James he objected that none of these authors credited him with the human attributes of kindness charity or honesty of purpose he reported that when he was living in the house in st. Joseph prior to the shooting he was called Charlie Howard the son of Tom Howard he points out that he did not then know his real name but after the shooting he was so learned that his real name was Jesse Edwards James and that he was named after John Newman Edwards the man who made Jesse James a household name through the writing of many favorable articles about Jesse he wanted to say that both Charlie and Bob Ford had been living in the house with them at this time and that Charlie's name was known to him as Charles Johnson and then he agrees with all about that blob and Charlie Ford were the cousins of Jesse and Frank and he confirms the report that Jesse had stayed at the home of the real James about two weeks before the shooting and it appears as if the Sun was the source of the story that the bullet had exited Jesse's head out through that mark just beside the left eye because that is what we reported in his book and the last important item in his book was that Jesse James was 5 feet 11 please remember 5 feet 11 inches tall we shall examine this a little later the man calling himself J Frank Dalton also answered the questions that the various writers on Jessie asked about the shooting but did not answer let me now return to the report that Bob Ford said that Jesse had given him the gun he used to shoot the outlaw with just a few days before the shooting I think that it would be imperative that Ford have the actual gun that Jesse used to shoot Charlie biggle so that if the sheriff asked for the gun it would be same caliber as the bullet that could have been taken from the head of the victim so this was an important detail that Jesse thought of to make certain that Bob Ford's story would have some credibility if it was challenged by the proper authorities let's look at some of the other problems that I discussed when I talked about the shooting a few minutes ago for instance the story that claimed that Jesse had taken his gun belt off in his own home it must be presumed that he had told Bob Ford to repeat this story that he had made up as a way of informing his friends family and gang members but not the public when the story was being reported by the newspapers that he was still alive because they would have known that Jesse would have never taken his gun belt off during the day as we have already seen he would have to live with his gun nearby at all times by necessity it were certainly essential that he have one with him all of his waking hours because it is known that people were anxious to shoot him either for the reward money posted or for the reputation that they were the man who shot Jesse James yet the official story had him taking his gun belt off the official story claimed that Jesse had been shot in the back of the head yet the truth was that he had been shot from the front this part of the story would have caused Jesse and his gang members to laugh as it circulated around the United States because he knew that he had shot Charlie Brown Charlie but Charlie Bigelow in the face as he entered the barn another preposterous part of the official story is that this he had stood on a chair to dust off a picture or to straighten it out while it was on the wall it is hard to believe that this part of the story stuck as well as the public was being asked to believe that Jesse James a bloodthirsty murderer would care enough about a little dust on a picture that he would take the time to dust it or that the picture hanging on the wall was not straight and that he would have cared enough to straighten it I think all of these bizarre claims were made up by the real Jesse as a way of explaining through all of his friends family and gang members that he was still alive people who knew that the real Jesse would know that he did not do the things claimed by the official story and they would realize that Jesse had made them up to show them that he did not die in this shooting Jesse James lived to be 103 the true story of the life of America's most famous out

Channel: Controuve

Views: 29,734

Rating: 4.6317134 out of 5

Keywords: Jesse James, J. Frank Dalton, Charlie Bigelow, Civil War, Northfield Bank Raid, William Andrews Clark, Exhumation of Jesse James, Jerome Arizona, Las Vegas Nevada, Huguette Clark, Masons, Knights of the Golden Circle, Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, Russia, Klu Klux Klan, George Custer, Ralph Epperson

Id: EBMKW8t9VPo

Length: 63min 22sec (3802 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 19 2018