The James Boys In Kentucky
© Sandi Gorin
Local Tid-Bits - Cont.
DID JESSE JAMES FORGET HIS GUNS? Miss Lena JEWELL also enjoys telling about the night five of the James gang were thought to have spent the night with her great-grandfather, Andrew CARPENTER, who lived in the Alex SPILLMAN home, still standing in the Barren River area, on the old highway. They came shortly before dark, were well mannered and well dressed. They asked for supper and lodging. Two were given a bedroom in the house, and three slept in the hayloft. They paid well. They left before dawn the next morning while the family was still asleep. One of them had left a belt with handsome pistol holsters hanging on the poster bed. The one who returned for it was thought to have been Jesse James.
Lester Thomas, of Route 3 Smiths Grove, says they knew all the river country, and that Jesse James had traded horses for fresh ones from his father, more than once. They had so many friends in the Capitol Hill community near Austin, that they would feel safe to camp in the woods, where they were always well supplied with food. Thomas also says that Frank taught at Rocky Hill. Shelley T. RIHERD agreed that he had heard his school adjoined the Rocky Hill Clubhouse grounds, at the rear of the historic SETTLE house, where the Happy Landing road turns left around the house. James called the school "The Rocky Hill Institute" and the Sinking Springs school "The Southern Institute."
ROY STONES PAYS TO WORK. Mrs. Edgar KING recalls that when her father, Roy STONE, was working in Texas, about 1910, Frank James had a stylish habedashery near him. He went to buy something just as an excuse to see Frank James. Hundreds of others traded there just to see and talk with the man who still intrigued the public wherever he went. Mrs. Nell ANDERSON, of Park City, related she had an aunt who went to school to James and won a price that she treasured.
Lenell LEACH [wife of Pete Leech of the historical society and editor of our cemetery book] states that her grandfather, James Andrew EWING, was living at Vaughn, Miss., where Casey JONES crashed on his last ride. Frank James and a friend spent the night with him. And so the little local, never before written memories could go on and on. They never forgot, if one of the Jameses passed their way.