My 3x Great Grandmother is Amanda Samira James. She was born August 27 1829 to William Jacob
James and Catherine Yount in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. Being of the James family in Missouri one’s
natural curiosity is to discover a relationship to the most famous of Missouri
James’ – the notorious Jesse James. I
was on the hunt.
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Courtesy Library of Congress
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After a thorough, exhausting search of Jesse’s family
history (just kidding, I read his Wikipedia entry), I found Jesse’s family was
from Virginia, via Kentucky, and settled in the Kansas City area where Jesse
and his brother Frank were born. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_James As my James family was from North Carolina to
Southeast Missouri, I was content there was no close familial relationship.
Sometime later I was perusing the cemetery listing of my
Great Grandmother Sophia Heitman Robinson. She is buried in the Patton Cemetery in Patton, Missouri. There also was a listing for Edward O’Kelley. This struck me as odd as Patton citizens were
generally of German descent. Also it
rang a bell in my own genealogy. Turns
out Sophia’s sister Rosanna married Zachariah O’Kelley in 1882. Zachariah and Edward were brothers. Edward’s Find-A-Grave listing proved
interesting. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=30175351
It turns out Edward was the man that killed Bob Ford, the
man that killed Jesse James.
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| Edward Capehart O'Kelley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ed_O'Kelley.jpg |
The story of Jesse James and Bob Ford is well known. Ford was a member of the James-Younger gang
and a trusted friend of the James family.
However, Ford made a deal with the Missouri Governor for his amnesty by killing
Jesse. Ford shot an unarmed Jesse when he
was hanging a picture in his house. Ford collected the $5000 reward and moved to Colorado.
How Edward was connected to the James-Younger gang is
somewhat cloudy. Some reports say Edward
married into the Younger family. Some
say he ran with the outlaw gang at some point.
Whatever his motivations, Edward sought revenge for Jesse’s murder.
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| Rock Island Argus June 9 1892 |
Newspaper accounts of Bob Ford’s murder in
1892 indicate that Edward waited for Bob to open his saloon for the day, called
out to him, and gunned him down as he turned around. Unfortunately for Edward, he was not seen as
the avenging angel he thought himself to be.
He was arrested and imprisoned for the murder.
Edward was incarcerated for several years and upon his
release drifted to Oklahoma. There
Edward was killed in a shoot-out with police.
Edward is buried in Oklahoma City.
He has a memorial
marker in Patton, Missouri erected by his family.
So while I’m not related to Jesse James, the brother-in-law
of my great-grandaunt is the man that killed the man that killed Jesse James.
Serendipity
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