Jesse Edwards James, Jr. was born on August 31, 1875, in Nashville, Tennessee. His mother was Zerelda Mimms, and his father was the famous outlaw Jesse Woodson James. Jessie James, Jr. paid a price for being the son of a notorious outlaw. His story and the story of his family speak of the times he and his father lived in and the toll that relationship took on his life.
The famous outlaw Jesse Woodson James was born on September 5, 1847, in Kearney, Missouri. He was a well-educated man from a respectable family of farmers. His father, the Reverend Robert James, was a Baptist minister. Robert James married Zerelda Cole. They moved from Kentucky to Missouri in 1842, where they purchased a farm. The Union Army attacked the James Family farm in the summer of 1863. After the attack, Jesse and his brother Frank became Confederate guerrilla soldiers. Jesse was only 16 years old.
The brothers rode with William Quantrill and “Bloody Bill” Anderson. The guerillas, also known as bushwhackers, attacked Union soldiers and sympathizers. Their actions were so horrific that the Confederate Army disassociated from them. After the war, the James brothers became bank and train robbers in the American West. Jesse James was the leader of the James-Younger gang.
In 1874, Jesse James married his cousin, she was his mother’s niece and namesake, Zerelda Mimms, Jesse and Zerelda, or “Zee” as he called her, had four children, Jesse James, Jr., Gould, and Montgomery (stillborn twins), and their last child a little girl they named Mary. Jesse was a family man who loved his wife and kids, but he continued his life of crime. The James brothers and their gangs committed about twenty-five robberies of trains, banks, and stagecoaches during their life of crime. They were on wanted lists from Iowa to Texas.
The James-Younger Gang raided the town of Northfield, Minnesota, in 1876. The James brothers got away, but their cousins, the Younger brothers, were captured and sentenced to life in prison. Jesse and Frank James fled to Tennessee to hide out. There, the brothers spent a few years farming before Jesse decided to form a new gang. Charlie and Bob Ford were part of the new gang, but they disliked Jesse and plotted to kill him for the reward money.
On April 3, 1882, Jesse James and the new gang were meeting to hear the plans for the next robbery. Jesse got up to straighten a picture on the wall, and Bob Ford shot Jesse several times in the back of the head, killing him for the reward. Jesse, Jr., Mary, and their mother, Zee, were in the kitchen. Zee was cooking breakfast when the shooting occurred. When he heard the gunshot, Jesse Jr. ran to his father, finding him on the floor in a pool of blood. Zee tried to stop the bleeding, but Jesse was dead.
These words are engraved on Jesse W. James’ tombstone: “Jesse W. James, Died April 3, 1882, Aged 34 years, 6 months, 28 days, murdered by a traitor and a coward whose name is not worthy to appear here.”
At the time of his father’s death, Jesse James, Jr. did not know who “Jesse James” really was. Jesse Jr. believed his own name was “Tim Howard” and that his father’s name was “John Davis Howard.” It was after his father was killed that Jesse Jr. learned about his legendary father’s criminal acts. In the years to come, Jesse James grew into a legend of the American West, and truths about Jesse were mixed in with false stories, sometimes making it hard to know the real Jesse James, Sr.
Jesse James, Jr. spent his early years in Tennessee and Missouri. He was seven years old when his father was killed. He would sometimes use his given alias, “Tim Howard,” and sometimes “Tim Edwards”. They were an outlaw family. Having been in hiding at a time during Jessie Sr.’s criminal years and using assumed names, the family came out of hiding when Jessie Sr’s death. Eventually, James, Jr. became the breadwinner of the family, going to work at age eleven. To support the family, he opened a cigar and tobacco store in the lobby of the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, Missouri.
According to family stories, one of Jesse’s customers at the cigar store was future President Harry Truman. When James Jr. could afford to hire help at the store, he began studying law. While studying law, James Jr. also operated his own pawn shop in Kansas City.
The death of the outlaw Jesse James did not stop the train robberies in Missouri. In 1898 a train robbery occurred just outside of Kansas City. The local law arrested several suspects, including Jesse James, Jr. The railroad detectives and prosecutors in Kansas City had never prosecuted a train robbery case successfully. They believed Jesse James Jr. had decided to follow in his train-robbing father’s footsteps and charged him with the crime. He was not a criminal.
Jesse James Jr. was 23 years old at the time of his arrest. Many believe law enforcement targeted him so they could say they caught a member of the James family. James, Jr. thought the days of being harassed because of his name were over, but that was not the case. Lawyer Frank P. Walsh defended James, Jr., He was acquitted of the robbery charge.
