The Legend of Jesse and Frank James in Montana

This is the forty-third installment of a monthly series commemorating Civil War veterans who came to Montana during or after the war. Famed outlaws Jesse and Frank James fought for the Confederacy, and legend has them coming to Montana Territory after the Civil War. This article explores this legend. To see recent installments from this series, visit greatfallstribune.com/civilwar.

Did they, or didn't they? A Montana legend portrays Jesse and Frank James living one winter in Montana Territory. The James brothers fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy, and, after the war, began a life of crime. Much of their colorful story is well known, yet their possible months in Montana are not. This is their Montana story.

The James family was among the many slave-owning families with ties to the South in the Little Dixie region of Missouri. While Jesse, born 1847, was too young to serve as the Civil War began, by August 1861 Frank James, four years older, joined the pro-secession regiment of Col. John Hughes, participating in the Battle of Wilson's Creek. The following year Frank joined William C. Quantrill's raiders, and was in on Quantrill's massacre at Lawrence, Kan.

In early 1864, 16-year-old Jesse James joined Quantrill, and for the rest of the war the James boys fought with either Quantrill or Bloody Bill Anderson in Missouri's vicious guerrilla war. Jesse twice was seriously wounded, but recovered both times. Both Frank and Jesse surrendered in May 1865.

The end of the Civil War found Missouri in chaos. Jesse and Frank James quickly transitioned from Civil War guerrillas to peacetime bandits, but that is another story. By the late 1860s, the Jameses joined at various times by Cole, John, Jim and Bob Younger, who shared similar allegiance to the South, were gaining national fame.

On July 21, 1873, the gang carried out their first train robbery, derailing a locomotive of the Rock Island Railroad near Adair, Iowa. Then, the gang vanished, and it is during the following six months that the Montana legend is centered. Did the gang ride from Iowa to the remote Upper Missouri region for a "cooling-off" period in the midst of the thousands of other former Confederates who sought new lives in Montana Territory?

Examining the clues, several powerful pieces of evidence emerge — personal testimony by a credible witness and a letter written by Jesse James from Deer Lodge. Charles S. Warren, a Civil War veteran and sheriff of Deer Lodge County testified that in 1873-74 he met Jesse and Frank James and Cole Younger in Deer Lodge. Sheriff Warren stated that "I was . . . startled at being introduced to Jesse James and Cole Younger. I was immensely surprised at the intelligence of these men, and we were not long in reaching an understanding. I could see at once they wanted immunity" to remain for several months. Warren agreed as long as the gang obeyed the laws of Montana Territory.

Warren further stated, "I met them many times on the road after that. ... They stayed in Montana several months and never attempted to do any business. ... They stayed around some months and then disappeared as mysteriously as they came."

On Dec. 29, 1873, a letter dated Dec. 20 and bearing Jesse James' signature appeared in the St. Louis Dispatch. Jesse insisted that he and Frank were guiltless of all recent crimes, offered alibis, and stated they would be willing to surrender if Missouri Gov. Silas Woodson would assure them a fair trial and protection against lynch mobs. The letter claimed that Jesse was then living in Deer Lodge, Montana Territory.

So, did Jesse James write this letter from Deer Lodge? It is fascinating that the Deer Lodge Post Office advertised in the Deer Lodge New North-west newspaper that a letter for "Jesse W. James" remained unclaimed there on March 20, 1874. That letter proves that at least one person believed Jesse James was there in the winter of 1873-74.

If the James-Younger gang did spend the winter of 1873-74 in Montana Territory, they had returned to Missouri by Jan. 31, 1874, when the gang robbed a train back in Missouri.

Other stories about the James brothers in Montana Territory abound including a family legend among Highwood Mountain ranching families, the Pattersons, Harrises, and Lepleys, that the James boys had visited the area, and Frank James had taught school one winter on upper Highwood Creek.

While there are other stories about the James boys in Montana Territory, perhaps we'll never know with absolute certainty. Yet, the evidence of General Warren and Jesse's letter from Deer Lodge lend credence to this fascinating Montana legend.

Ken Robison is a local historian and author of Confederates in Montana Territory: In the Shadow of Price's Army and Montana Territory and the Civil War: A Frontier Forged on the Battlefield.