Jesse James
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Aug 31, 2015 · Below are some rare photos of Jesse James, also known as Jesse Woodson James, from a kid to his dead. Jesse, around age seven, with his five year old sister, Susan, ca. 1854. Jesse Woodson James is on the far left next to his parents Orpha Elizabeth and William M James. Jesse James, Platte City, Missouri, July 10, 1864.
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Oct 2, 2015 · The last known photo of American outlaw Jesse James is the real deal, according to the forensic expert who authenticated it. Lois Gibson says the photo's owner, Sandy Mills, spent 12...
Mar 20, 2013 · No Way Out, but Outlawry. After the Civil War Jesse and Frank tried to surrender. They were fired upon by vengeful Union soldiers as they rode in under a white flag of truce. Jesse was hit in the chest and barely survived were it not for Frank’s quick actions to rescue him. Jesse entered the war as a teenager lad and became a seasoned warrior ...
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A Houston forensic artist says a photograph purported to show outlaw Jesse James sitting next to his eventual killer, Robert Ford, is authentic.
Jesse James had lived through shootouts and two gun blasts to the chest, but ultimately he couldn’t survive a little housekeeping. As the infamous Wild West outlaw straightened and dusted a picture hanging on the living room wall of his rented home in St. Joseph, Missouri, on April 3, 1882, Robert Ford edged up behind him and drew his revolver. A new recruit to the James Gang that had robbed banks, stagecoaches and trains across Missouri and surrounding states, Ford pulled the trigger and fatally shot James in the back of his head.
Now, more than 130 years after Ford betrayed his fellow gang member for the reward money and a gubernatorial pardon, a full-body photograph purported to show James sitting side-by-side with his eventual killer has been authenticated by a renowned forensic artist. The undated tintype photograph was reportedly once in the possession of John and Pauline Higgins, a couple who harbored members of the James Gang in their Cedar County, Missouri, farmhouse during the 1870s. The photograph was handed down through five generations of the family until it came into the possession of 40-year-old Sandra Mills, who lives in rural Washington.
In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Mills said her grandmother, Isabelle Klemann, told her stories about their ancestors’ connection to the James Gang and kept the tintype wrapped in a handkerchief in her dresser drawer. “This is Jesse James and the coward Robert Ford,” Klemann told Mills of the photograph, which she bequeathed to her granddaughter three years before her 2006 death.
According to Mills, Klemann hoped that her granddaughter could sell the family heirloom and purchase land with the earnings. However, Mills found collectors were skeptical of the photograph’s authenticity. “I’m just a farm girl, so nobody wanted to listen,” she told the Houston Chronicle. “We got no respect from anybody.”
Earlier this year, Mills turned to Lois Gibson, one of the country’s top forensic artists and an analyst for the Houston Police Department, for help. Over her 33-year career, Gibson has worked on more than 4,500 cases, and her sketches based on witness testimonies has resulted in the identification of more than 1,200 individuals. The certified forensic artist has also delved into the realm of history by identifying the sailor who kissed a nurse in Times Square in an iconic photograph at the close of World War II as well as authenticating a rare photograph of another famed outlaw—Billy the Kid.
Two portraits of outlaw Jesse James. On the left is a more commonly accepted portrait of Jesse James. The authenticity of the portrait on the right is disputed by the James Preservation Trust.
Eric James is a member of the James family who together with one of the outlaw’s great-grandsons co-founded the James Preservation Trust in 2002. Their mission is to archive and address issues of veracity in regard to the family history and they are among the Jesse James historians who disagree with the authenticity of this photo. He says the tintype is just another in a long line of hoaxes related to the gang leader.
James tells HISTORY the trust receives photograph representations two to four times a month. In a lengthy post on Stray Leaves, the official website of the family of Frank and Jesse James, he says Mills approached him in March 2013 about the tintype reportedly bearing the images of Ford and James, which he found to be “blatantly false. I told her there is no way this would be a representation of either man,” James says.
In disputing Gibson’s findings, James notes the tintype she published is reversed from the image presented to him. “That’s a prime no-no in any scientific authentication,” he says. “You don’t tamper with the image.” James also says some of the photographs Gibson used as a basis of comparison are not at all authentic, including one in which the man put forth as Jesse James “displays a full set of unharmed digits” unlike the outlaw, who had a missing fingertip on an index finger. “She’s just comparing one bogus photo with another,” he says.
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The victim on the right is the photo of the corpse presented as Jesse that day. Jesse Woodson James. Dead men tell no tales. Clearly, Jesse W. James had far less of a hairline than the victim in his death photo. This is problematic since men loose there hair as they age. But traditional historians would have us believe that Jesse’s hair grew ...
