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Post by Nik Oak on Jun 7, 2015 13:34:06 GMT -5
It has crossed my mind several times to wonder if Brushy might have been the biological son of Billy the kid, brought up on tales of his father, possibly from multiple sources. After all Billy was known as a ladies man!
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Post by Texas Truth Teller on Jun 7, 2015 21:13:17 GMT -5
XS59, Analysis of photographs, while not hearsay, is certainly subjective and not definitive. Proof, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. The same is true regarding the resemblance of Brushy Bill to the only recognized image of Billy the Kid. The debate will continue. Not even exhumation of Brushy Bill for a Y DNA sample for comparison to the Y DNA of a male Roberts descendant of Thomas U. Roberts and a perfect match would convince the diehard Brushy Bill believers. You've posed an interesting question. Why would Brushy Bill lie and claim he was Billy the Kid with a death sentence still outstanding? Consider this. Brushy Bill was living in Gregg County in 1935 and 1940. Frank (J. Frank) Dalton was living in Gregg County in 1935 and 1940. They both lived in Gladewater in 1935. They were photographed together about 1942 at the ranch of DeWitt Travis. DeWitt Travis signed an affidavit for J. Frank Dalton in support of his Texas pension claim that he had been one of Quantrill's guerrillas. DeWitt Travis signed an affidavit for Morrison swearing that Brushy Bill was Billy the Kid, even though DeWitt was born several years after the reported death of Billy the Kid in 1881. In Lawton, OK, in 1948, J. Frank Dalton announced to the world that he was Jesse Woodson James, and signed an affidavit that he was the son of Robert James and Zerelda Cole, born 5 Sep 1847 in Centerville (Kearney), Missouri. He later claimed his mother was Zerelda Dalton, not Zerelda Cole. Dalton had applied for a Texas Confederate pension, and gave his date of birth as 8 March 1848. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AGFPHRQMHABrushy Bill traveled to Meramec Caverns for J. Frank Dalton's birthday. Brushy Bill traveled to New York City to support Dalton's claim that he was Jesse James. Both Brushy Bill and J. Frank Dalton claimed service in the Texas Rangers and as deputy U S Marshalls in the Indian Territory. In my OPINION, both J. Frank Dalton and Brushy Bill read extensively about Jesse James and Billy the Kid, respectively, so they should have been well versed about their subjects. Perhaps the 71 year old Brushy Bill saw the advantage in being a famous outlaw.
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Post by Wayne Land on Jun 8, 2015 0:30:48 GMT -5
Perhaps, if he felt he could ignore the risk. But let's not forget that Brushy did not voluntarily seek out the notoriety of being Billy The Kid. In the trip to Meramac caverns there was no claim to be BTK. During the trip to New York there was no claim of being BTK. Rather, he was approached by William Morrison and only then did he admit his true identity. His behavior does not support your theories.
And BTW, J. Frank Dalton has "not" been proven to be a fraud and there is nothing about Dewitt's statements that necessarily represent lies.
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Post by XS59 on Jun 8, 2015 6:32:08 GMT -5
Texas Truth Teller, well, I would certainly be convinced by a dna-test if it has been executed diligently. In Brushy Bill's case it would be easy to prove if he was genetically related to the descendants of the Roberts family or not. If he wasn't it's still no proof that he was the Kid, but it would be very interesting nevertheless. Wouldn't today's forensic standards also be able to take a hard look at Brushy's age at the time of his death? There's a big difference between a 70 years and a 90 years old man. That would not be ultimately conclusive but it could add new information. But I highly doubt that it will happen. Yes, what could have been Brushy's motives if he wasn't the Kid? That's a difficult question, especially if one considers the dynamics between him and Dalton - and Morrison of course. IMO, it's a fascinating story no matter if they were frauds or not, considering their advanced age (even if they weren't as old as they claimed to be). As to the still looming death sentence, maybe Brushy felt - being the Kid or not) that no governor (who needs to have an eye on his polls) in his right mind would have taken it upon himself to execute the Kid, especially since there's the business of the promised pardon. If Brushy wasn't the Kid he might've also felt he'd be safe because he had the option to withdraw his story should he get into hot water against all odds. Anyway, I said so before, his association with Dalton, who was a fascinating figure in his own right, doesn't help his claim. Dalton's claim I simply don't buy.
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Post by Texas Truth Teller on Jun 9, 2015 13:18:29 GMT -5
XS59, You are correct. There's nothing about Dalton's claim that is believable.. It is true that it is impossible to determine his real name, parents, siblings (if any), wives (if any), or children (if any), and that he was not Jesse Woodson James. He has only been conclusively identified in the 1930 census of McLennan County,Texas,and the 1940 census of Gregg County, Texas.
However, there are sufficient records to convince any competent historian that Jesse Woodson James was killed in 1882, long before J. Frank Dalton made his claim. The will of Zerelda Samuel, mother of Jesse James, directed that she be buried between her dead sons, Archibald Samuel and Jesse James. That is fact, not hearsay. Jesse was first buried in her yard, before being moved to his final resting place in Mount Olivet Cemetery beside his mother. The DNA results, although not conducted using optimum procedures, did not suggest that someone other than JWJ was buried in his grave. There are numerous newspaper articles dated April 1882 that are found in Chronicling America related to the death of Jesse James, yet apparently that information is not enough to convince Mr. Land that J. Frank Dalton was an impostor.
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Post by Wayne Land on Jun 9, 2015 14:34:00 GMT -5
I generally shy away from discussions about J. Frank Dalton for a couple of reasons. First, I'm not convinced about him one way or the other and second, I'm too wrapped up in studying the Brushy Bill claim to spread my attentions over to Dalton as well.
Why am I not convinced one way or the other? Because I believe without DNA evidence the most reliable evidence is photo comparisons, and due to Dalton's very advanced age in the photos I have of him, and the contrasting angles, I don't feel there is any one of his photos that can be effectively compared to any of those accepted as being the real Jesse James. At least not using the methods I incorporated to compare BTK with Brushy. That said, just looking at the photos with a critical eye, I don't see anything that would rule him out as being Jesse James.
As for your listed reasons he couldn't be Jesse, I disagree with the assumptions you make as being any real proof. Zerelda may well have asked to be buried between her dead sons in order to discourage anyone from thinking Jesse was still alive. The body of the fellow who was alleged to be the dead Jesse was buried in her yard and then moved, very true. But that certainly doesn't prove he was the real Jesse. As for the DNA, you said it yourself, "not conducted using optimum procedures". Well, I'd say the procedures were rather pathetic. The only DNA they got was from a tooth that came from somewhere on the James farm. Could have been one lost by Jesse or a relative long before his alleged demise. NO ONE knows for sure where that tooth came from originally and there is nothing but hearsay to suggest it came from the body of the man that was in Jesse's grave. And finally, I suppose no newspaper ever printed a story that was based on misinformation? Come on! You can come up with something better than "it was in the newspaper". You didn't even mention that there were photos of Jesse in his coffin with men standing by who had identified the body. Maybe you've looked carefully at those photos as have I and determined the man's hair is parted on the opposite side from Jesse's and his ears are quite different and the distance from the corner of his eye to his hairline at his temple is quite different? No, not enough to say conclusively that the body was not Jesse's but it is enough to justify questioning.
Again, PLEASE, remember I have not stated I believe Dalton was Jesse James. But it does bother me the way he has been labeled a fraud, based on information that is itself quite possibly fraudulent. I repeat what I've said about him many times before, I believe he may have been the real Jesse but I'm not convinced he was.
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Post by XS59 on Jun 9, 2015 14:50:04 GMT -5
Texas Truth Teller, it's of course possible that Jesse's mother wanted people to throw off the scent, when she made that testament. Not a very plausible explanation but I guess there might be small loopholes for those arguing that Jesse didn't die that day. I'm not well versed in Jesse James lore, so I will abstain from that discussion. For me it's more important if Dalton was an impostor or not. There are many facts which make me think he was a brilliant conman. But one prominent and objective factor is his alleged age of 104 years (!). How big is the likelihood that a man from the 19th century, living the life of an outlaw for many years - probably not a very healthy lifestyle - will reach that age? We tend to forget that in the 21st century. That alone is a big strike against Mr. Dalton IMO. But it's interesting nevertheless to speculate who he really was. Question: are there other claims around that time and a bit earlier from old men who said that they were in reality famous gun slingers of the old West? I'm asking because time was running out for them. Each year their claim would become more unbelievable.
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Post by XS59 on Jun 9, 2015 18:49:00 GMT -5
Maybe, we have to distinguish between two questions: did Jesse James fake his death? Since I really don't know enough about that subject, I can't really contribute anything intelligent . The other question is of course if - in case Jesse had faked his death - Dalton was really Jesse (same goes for the Kid and Brushy of course). And, as I said above, Jesse's age at the time Dalton made his claim would have been 103 years. For me that's a question of probabilities. If you look at statistics the likelihood that any male born in the 1850s in the West reaches a 100 years is very small. That alone makes Dalton's claim quite improbable. But I have to conceed that from what I've seen on photographs Dalton does have features which are similar to Jesse's. And that makes this story so crazy. You have these two old, maybe even very old men crawling out from under a rock - in Dalton's case apparently out of nowhere - and they do have both these similarities.
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Post by XS59 on Jun 9, 2015 20:29:19 GMT -5
This Jesse James controversy compelled me to take a look at the picture of the dead man in the coffin, who's supposed to be Jesse James. My gut reaction: no way is this the same guy as the one on the authenticated pictures of the living Jesse James. After a closer look: the ears are different, the hair is fuller, the whole face is fuller and less rat like than the living Jesse's features. Mhm... Has someone ever done an analysis? The guy in the coffin looks more like a sleeping Brad Pitt, but not like the alleged pictures of the living Mr. James.
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Post by Wayne Land on Jun 10, 2015 0:28:13 GMT -5
Also, take a look at the part of the hair. Check the direction of the overlap of the pants, etc. and you know which is left and right in the photos, then take a look at the known photos of Jesse. In some of those it is impossible to discern which side his hair is parted on but in several of them it is obvious. And as I mentioned before, the distance from his eye to the edge of his hair at the temple is much different. The guy in that coffin had a certain resemblance to Jesse James but I don't believe he's the real deal.
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Post by XS59 on Jun 10, 2015 7:12:03 GMT -5
Yes, the edge of the hair temple is different indeed. Since men can't grow back hair once they experienced thinning, this would strongly suggest the guy in the coffin isn't Jesse James - or all pictures which are declared to show Jesse James are from a different person. I found an article in the net which claimed that computer aided comparisons between Dalton photos and Jesse photos showed that Dalton was most likely not Jesse. But then the article claimed that pictures of the living Jesse were compared with pictures of the guy in the coffin - and the result was, that the guy in the coffin wasn't Jesse either! I didn't link the article because unfortunately no source for this claim was given. But if that claim is true I wonder why it didn't receive wider coverage. And intuitively (which is of course not good enough for drawing valid conclusions) I find these results quite reasonable. Someone claimed that Jesse had tried to fake his death before - after a skirmish in 1879. Is that correct? Again no source was quoted. So I'm hesitatent about believing it. If that is true, though, it would be very important because it would establish that Jesse had at least entertained the idea of faking his own death.
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Post by Wayne Land on Jun 10, 2015 8:59:56 GMT -5
Once more, I have no conviction about Dalton one way or the other but I feel his claim should not be so easily dismissed by the mainstream. For example, the suggestion that a man born in the 1800's would not have lived to be 104 is not based on fact. There have always been individuals who've lived past 100 and in my opinion, the photos of him late in life appear to be a man who's age is extreme. Brushy as well is often said to have not looked like a 90 year old. I've personally known a man who was 102 and absolutely did not look a day over 80 or so. He could have easily passed for 70 or 75. He drove himself into our piano store in Fort Lauderdale and purchased a 17 thousand dollar home organ so he could play it for his 103 year old wife who was bed ridden. He was taking care of her pretty much by himself. I was in their home and had cake and ice cream and played the new instrument for them. I know of what I speak. This occurred in 1990, so he was born in 1888. Jesse was born in 1847. So we are to believe it could not have happened to someone born just 41 years prior to the man I knew? I'll say it. That is ridiculous!
I don't know the answer to your question about Jesse's prior attempt to fake his death. I do have a digital copy of one of only several existing copies of the manuscript of a book written by Ola Everhardt. The book is about Dalton with several references about Brushy but was never published. I borrowed it from Judge Bob Hefner in Hico, Texas and scanned the entire thing page by page. Before I ever had a chance to read it all the way through, the hard drive I had it stored on failed. I still have the hard drive and I need to see if I can have the data retrieved but I've just never done it. Maybe I'll try that soon. And I'll do some looking online regarding that prior attempt.
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Post by Wayne Land on Jun 10, 2015 9:04:41 GMT -5
Oh, and I haven't mentioned why I also have great doubts about Dalton. It's just that his story his quite incredible and difficult to swallow. He claimed there were two different Jesse's who were cousins and they both had brothers named Frank. I believe there was also a third Jesse involved. I've just never researched his story's validity much at all because I've never quite been motivated to get into it.
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Post by XS59 on Jun 10, 2015 11:33:19 GMT -5
Wayne, I think my age argument can't be dismissed as ridiculous. The likelihood to reach such an age is simply really small. Of course people occasionally do reach such an old age no matter when they were born. And some of them are astonishingly healthy and lucid to the very end. But those are exceptions. I was talking statistics. And based on statistics it's simply not very likely that Jesse James reached that age - even if Dalton was as old as he claimed to be. And I agree, on the pictures he looks like a very old man. Maybe it's worth checking if anyone from the James family - who died of natural causes - has reached a very old age, since one component is genetic disposition. Is anything known about Jesse's health, btw? As to Brushy: I agree that on pictures he looks older than 70 - although not as old as 90 IMO. But that's very subjective. Only a doctor who has examined someone personally can make an educated guess. It might be a valuable exercise to look at photos of confirmed 90 year old caucasian white males born around 1850 in America, who lived in similar economical circumstances. Perceptions of how old people look shift constantly. While it wouldn't prove anything one way or another it would be interesting nevertheless.
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Post by Texas Truth Teller on Jun 11, 2015 18:19:27 GMT -5
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