The James Boys In Kentucky
© Sandi Gorin
The 1868 Russellville, KY, Bank Robbery.
The Jesse James gang's robbery of the Nimrod LONG Banking Co., in Russellville, on March 20, 1868, was an exciting episode of the early years after the Civil War.
Records indicate that John James and Mary POOR were married in Logan County in 1807. Their five sons were Woodson, John, Thomas, William and Robert. There were three daughters, one of whom marrried a HITE, one a MIMMS, and one a HALL (per the W.Lee STEWART letter of 13 July, 1961).
Robert James, one of the sons of John and Mary POOR James, was born about the year 1820, and on December 28 1841, he was married to Zerelda COLE, of Woodford County, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Richard COLE, Jr., a wealthy man. Robert James was a Baptist minister and a graduate of Georgetown College. He is supposed to have received aid in a financial way from George W. NORTON and Nimrod LONG in securing his education.
GOOD EXHORTER. In August 1842, Robert and Zeralda James went to Clay County, Missouri, to visit Robert's mother, who had just married a second time. Robert left his wife in Missouri and returned to Kentucky, but he went back to Missouri in the spring of 1843. He settled in Clay County, near Kearney and became a successful farmer, in addition to his preaching. He is described as a good exhorter and a revivalist. It is said he baptized many converts. His son Jesse was baptized some years later in the same Clay County.
In 1850 Robert James went to California on a prospecting trip. His journey lasted from April 13 to August 1st. He lived only eighteen days after reaching California and he was buried there.
Children of Robert and Zeralda James were Franklin, born in 1844; Jesse Woodson, born September 5, 1847, and Susan L., born in 1849. Zerelda James was married second to Benjamin SIMMS, who died, and a third time to Dr. Reuben SAMUELS in 1855, and their children were Sarah L., born in 1858; John T., born in 861, and Fannie Quantrill, born in 1863, and Archie Peyton, born in 1866.
WITH HIS BROTHER FRANK. Shortly after the war, Frank and Jesse James, after having been associated with QUANTRILL, the notorious guerilla, began an outlaw career of their own. After robberies at Liberty, Lexington, and Savannah, Missouri, the James brothers together with the YOUNGER brothers, Cole and Jim, left Missouri in the early part of 1868. They were joined by George and Oliver SHEPHERD. George Shepherd had lived near Russellville two or three years previously. It was in Nelson County that the Russellville raid was planned. (J. W. Buell, in his book "The Younger Brothers.")