Volume 11 , Issue 38

1882 - Crime

1882 - Crime -- Jesse James dies April 3, 1882 at age 34 of a gunshot wound in the back of the head. A fugitive since the Northfield, Minnesota, bank robbery attempt of 1876, James had been living quietly at St. Joseph, Missouri, under the name Thomas Howard. The governor had offered a large reward for the capture of James dead or alive, James had befriended fellow outlaw Robert Ford, who had shot him to get the reward, and his murder inspired a ballad that would make future generations regard James as a Robin Hood figure.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud that had simmered for years in the southern Appalachians of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky boiled over in the election day shooting of Kentucky storekeeper Ellison Hatfield, brother of William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield, 43, who mortally wounded Harmon McCoy of the Union Army while fighting with Confederate forces in the Civl War.

Hatfield's son Johnse had precipitated the quarrel by attempting to elope with Randall McCoy's daughter Rosanna, and when Ellison Hatfield died of his wounds three of McCoy's sons, captured earlier by an armed posse under Anse Hatfield, were murdered in retaliation, beginning a blood-bath that would continue for years as local influence was used to obtain quick release of any arrested participants.

Kentucky authorities would invade West Virginia in 1888 and would seize several Hatfields, ending open warfare between the clans. "Devil Anse" Hatfield would live until late in 1921.
  |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---