Jesse James

Jesse James is one of the most notorious gun-slingers of the wild west. Born in Clay County, Missouri on September 5, 1847 Jesse had two sibling his older brother Alex Franklin, and his younger sister Susan James. His father died when Jesse was just 3 and his mother remarried twice. During the Civil War Jesse was a guerilla fighter for the south. He went through a lot seeing massacres of woman and children and the scalping of prisoners. Jesse was also shot in the chest twice and the arm once. Recovering from his chest wounds at his uncles house Jesse fell for his cousin which resulted in the two of them marrying. Jesse began robbing banks with his brother Frank. He started with small non national banks in Missouri and slowly progressed. In 1867 Jesse and Frank robbed a bank in which they killed the mayer and two other bystanders. Jesse James name however wasn’t known until 1869 when him and Frank robbed the Daviess County Savings Association, where Jesse shot and killed the cashier mistaking him for an officer who killed his friend “Bloody Bill” Anderson in the Civil War. This one got in the paper and soon Jesse became infamous for his ruthlessness. James also turned to rain robbery where he stole $3,000(51,000 today) but never robbed a passenger giving him a Robin Hood figure in the papers. James continued his shenanigans for several years until his gang was annihilated and he was assassinated with his back turned by Bob Ford James’ sworn enemy.

http://www.ci.st-joseph.mo.us/history/jessejames.cfm