Mark Twain and JESSE JAMES! Do YOU believe?

It is a scientific truth that things do not fall together. Nobody can explain the Universe or a single atom, or how or why they came together. Or how or why they stay together. Things never fall together, and given any opportunity, they will always try to fall apart. So when they do fall together, it is something like the Creative Force of the universe willing it so... 

 Upon meeting, Jesse supposedly said to Mark Twain, " I suppose we are the greatest in our line."  [Image is totally photo-shopped.]

At the heart of my theory on this blog - is the shear number of images which have an uncanny resemblance to famous people who were in some way related to one another, all discovered from ONE SOURCE.  HUNDREDS.  Over two hundred interrelated people who can be tied to Mark Twain or his biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine.

But when I started this project, I had no idea just how related they would turn out to be. My first major clues were provided by GOOGLE Search which effortlessly showed me who to look for.   After I recognized someone pictured in an auction, GOOGLE would find me pictures to compare to, and more importantly, would also (unsolicited) show me the faces of persons which were associated with the person I was researching. That is the mind of a search engine... ANYTHING related. It would teach me and familiarize me as I dug into a particular person's “image community.” That way when a familiar face (because of my endless surfing on GOOGLE) popped up in an auction, I may not have known who they were, but I recognized that they were known historically as a family member or associate to somebody I already researched.

In some cases, the relationships suggested by GOOGLE were absolutely correct, although shocking to me. I had a lot of reading to do!

There was a lot of back and forth. And this research has also led to many dead-ends and false alarms and disappointments. There were seemingly scores of certain individuals who had too many look-alikes. Sometimes I wondered whether I was delving into a collection of carefully assembled look-alikes. In fact Mark Twain and A. B. Paine were actually obsessed with the prospects of look-alikes, and used the concept in several books. 

 An example of the acceptable likenesses of outlaws of the time.

And then there were the unexpected historical inconsistencies. Before 1880, many famous people, especially those “out west,” were poorly or rarely photographed, or in some cases popular, historically accepted images of them were not them at all. For many recognizable western personalities, the best image we have today is a picture of a picture of a picture. So desperate were the early writers to get published, they often used poor quality or bogus photographs to strengthen their chances of publication and improve on subsequent sales. Most people, including law enforcement, had never seen a clear photo of the most famous outlaws until they were propped up, stiff and grimacing, outside some frontier morgue after they had been eliminated from the Most Wanted list.

And there was lots of monkey business with the criminal corpses as frontier photographers seized the opportunity to make a buck off of these grisly images of bullet-riddled badmen-made-good. But actually, there were practical reasons for obtaining good photographs of the most famous outlaws, even dead. Besides the fact that the public wanted to see and the papers wanted to show them, law enforcement agencies all over needed them to clear look-alikes, satisfy ID confusion between outlaw siblings, and to be sure sought-after criminals with large rewards were actually dead. The public release of these photos also helped promote the idea that crime did not pay.

Still every mother's son loved to read cheap western publications which sported sensational images of American criminals, dead or alive. Dead, wild-eyed outlaws with their guns laid artistically across their perforated chests were a bonus!

 In this collection was only one such photo which I acquired for soon-to-be obvious reasons. Once again the seller had no idea what it was, and to me it looked a lot like Jesse James. Since I had already acquired around a dozen James family related tintypes, from the same seller, I could not pass on it, even if there were some “problems” with it.

I have thought about it a lot, even talked with an undertaker, trying to satisfy myself about the anomalies. In the meantime it got a lot more complicated with the reading of JESSE: A Novel of the Outlaw Jesse James, by Max McCoy. I had missed it completely, when McCoy released this captivating book in 1999, which did not make a huge splash in history. And it's a good thing it didn't. Because McCoy made the whole thing up and led many of us, who trusted him astray.

IF you are interested in Jesse James, or the supposed (original) author of this book, Mark Twain, or just want to read the most convincing guerrilla soldier's account of the Civil War (that I have encountered) then this book is sure to grab you as it did me.

In a nutshell, according to McCoy's story, Jesse James approached Mark Twain long after his supposed demise, and gave his personal account of his life to be written and published by Mark Twain... “when the coast was clear,” we assume. It is a very convincing account, and given the shameless, well received lies Mark Twain published, McCoy should damned proud of himself.

It was a killer. In every respect. The condition and the circumstances surrounding McCoy's incredible "find" suggest a possible legal entanglement, and even a fire, and a rescue from it, and certainly damage and a loss of pages in the manuscript.But of course, much later he came out and admitted the whole thing was a hoax created when  he was suffering from a a sort of writer's slump. In fact Max McCoy claims he doesn't even remember writing the story.

You will have to read the book to answer your multiple questions about how all this transpired, because I need to get to the meat of my part of the story. According to McCoy's tease, which he admits was a hoax, Jesse James successfully faked his death with the help of his wife and the Ford brothers, (James's cousins) who had been offered a generous reward to deliver him dead. Very handily, John Thomas Samuel, a younger half-brother of the most Wanted Man in America, just happened to die from an old gunshot wound and was conveniently laid in his place. The rest was fake history.

John Thomas Samuel even favored Jesse in appearance and general description, and since very few people had ever seen the outlaw, and only one somewhat recent photo of him was in circulation, and (like Jesse) the corpse sported a full beard which helped to disguise him for any skeptics, it was a smooth deception. Never questioned, the switch miraculously gave Jesse James a chance for a new start in life. According to the story, it required Jesse's wife and family to move away and start their own life without him- in Kansas City. This was an acceptable option compared to the life they had.

To add to the illusion, the book is damn well written, although seemingly not Victorian enough to be from Twain's pen. Expletives and other profane situations in JESSE seem to be major exceptions to Twain's otherwise fairly Midwestern propriety.  And up till now, nobody knew what Jesse James might say if he had the chance. But I propose that even Jesse would not have formed some of these thoughts and words... in many ways he was more chivalrous than Mark Twain... and it would take a day to make all those points, so I would rather make my argument for what the wonderful manuscript that McCoy published was.

Max McCoy readily connected the manuscript with Twain's biographer Albert Bigelow Paine, establishing what everyone now calls plausible deniability. In other words, Paine, the bad guy of Twain lore, wrote it. Kind of like the Devil made me do it.  IF Twain had somehow met with Jesse James, he would have handwritten the notes and even the final manuscript, to then be transcribed. The fact that McCoy claimed that he worked from a badly damaged, typed manuscript brings a third chef into the stew. (But there only ONE!) The book was written to make every impression that it was a joint effort, if not somewhat contentious, between Mark Twain and Jesse James, but that could have been only part of the evolution of this manuscript. 

Then it laid fallow for almost one hundred years. 

Many details are related by James (or whomever) which are little known facts, and almost impossible to have been recorded by any other than a James family member. It seems unlikely and almost impossible for this detailed, introspective confessional to have been a product of some Twentieth Century researcher. The age of the typed story, mildly edited by McCoy, placed its origins long before this kind of exhaustive research had become a standard in historical biography. And frankly few writers then (or now) could have conjured up the stink of war and the smell of black powder which reeks from this unpretentious account.

Too bad it was all a lie. It is a masterful work that reads believably as the forging of these two American legends... “the greatest in their lines” as James supposedly remarked at their first meeting.  Since it is NOT them, and not a legitimate collaboration, then the creator of this ruse is to be adored and congratulated. One HELL of a storyteller. It is a work of genius on several levels, and stands on its own.

 

Still, I am hard-headed, and McCoy turned me on to something valuable here, a very intriguing theory about Jesse James's faked death.. let's go back to the last time we saw Jesse. In the coffin. There must have been dozens of photographs made of Jesse during that famous session after his assassination. Supposedly Bob Ford killed Jesse with a .44 caliber pistol, sending a large projectile, at almost point blank. It is hard to image the small amount of damage done to the forehead of the deceased. The baby face of the bearded man looks to be in his twenties. Jesse was a hardened 35. Think 50 in human terms. And Jesse had very high, very prominent cheekbones, totally missing after death! Jesse also had a long turned up nose, with a substantial bulb on the end, totally missing after death! Jesse had thin hair, and a receding hairline, conveniently covered by a beautiful head of hair, after death.

 An authentic photograph, known in antique circles as a "CDV" of Jesse James.

But that is not all. Not only was his face either obscured by facial hair or just not right, those who prepared his body for burial were careful to arrange his hands in each photo so the missing digit on his left hand could not be seen. Because it was not missing! They did however rip his shirt open to display “old” Civil War wounds... which were right where... brother John Thomas had been shot as well. 

 All images of James are accepted as authentic, 

except mine in the middle, which is relatively unknown.

You can't make this stuff up. Look for yourself... And then there is my photo. I bought this because it looked like a dead guy... who could be mistaken for Jesse James. Propped up in his burial suit, hair mashed from being crammed into a casket that was too short, (or later into a body bag for transport) his ill fitting clothes look like somebody struggled to dress him and then gave up... and took the photos in a rush, but why? Better photos had been taken, when he had first been brought in, his shirt “still bloody” from the shooting. 

 It looks like somebody wiped a bloody hand on his left shoulder, as if trying to create the impression of violence. But the individual finger prints are easily observed. Someone, probably a relative had cleaned him up and prepared him to be photographed for posterity. But a large caliber bullet from behind should have left considerable damage at the exit hole. Pleasant faced “Jesse” sports a moderate gash above his left eye. In more probability, it was a much smaller bullet, and according to the book, applied after death. The whole family was in it up to their lawless eyeballs, or at least up to their cunning smirks.

If in fact they were part of a body-switch plan to release Jesse from his tortured life, they would have known how important it was to deceive and not raise suspicions. And getting convincing photos was important to satisfy the authorities. Many a Pinkerton man would want to inspect them. They craftily provided a body with a bullet that could pass for the Southern folk hero. It was every bit as outlandish as attacking the Northfield bank.

Notice how Jesse's head is bent slightly to make
 him fit into a casket which was almost too small.

Meanwhile the differences between my dead Jesse and theirs are explainable. Only the dead man's ears keep the two likenesses from being the exact same man.

It is apparent from the first and most famous postmortem photos and illustrations of James that they had trouble getting John Thomas/Jesse's eyes to stay closed. This was not unusual. After the body was put on ice, to retard deterioration, the skin became even less flexible and whatever expression was achieved would become fixed until professional techniques could be applied (And probably never were).

In other words, a dead body sometimes has a life of its own. 

"Jesse" was taken by train to his home church in Clay County to be viewed by friends and family before burial. I propose that my photo was taken by law enforcement on the other end of the train ride, not for posterity but to finally provide a face for their files. They may have been unaware or distrustful of the first series of photos. He had probably been shipped in a bag and laid on his ear and so his ear appears to stick to his head... rather than angle out like it should when thawed out. They sat him up, now hunched over and stiff from being shipped in a iced down box, and put on his burial clothes. He looked far from natural. A frontier photographer would not care whether his eyes were closed or staring him in the face... as my Jesse sleepily tries to do. They just wanted proof... that the most wanted outlaw in history was permanently retired.

I'm sure some lawmen later studied the photographs and were still not satisfied. Nor should they have been. But there was no way they were going to pursue their suspicions. And how could they? The evidence was buried, they still had no likeness of Jesse James to compare to, and John Thomas Samuel was unavailable for comment.

Very few people knew about Jesse's half-brother who had been struggling for life at home. He had been wounded at a party, almost died, went into a coma, then recovered, then, according to the book, (and unknown to the outside world) he suddenly died after some time passed. And here opportunity presented itself, to a desperate and devious clan. The Samuels had always been a very remote, private network of counterculture. There was a network of deadly protection surrounding the Samuel household. Several detectives had gone there never to be seen alive again. When the body was interred on the property near the house, that would have been the appropriate and least accessible thing (for inquiry) they could have done. And if John Thomas got up and walked out, nobody would know or care.

 So far, I have found only one photo of "John Thomas Samuel" 

(upper right).  Compare! None of these faces look like
 the authentic Jesse James (right-center & bottom right). If the
 old man is Jesse, his nose grew some (plausible) but he
 appears to have the expected triangular face and those
 high cheek bones.

 The only known photo of John Thomas was taken with

 Jesse's son (left), born in 1975, who appears to be in his

 mid-forties. This would make John Thomas 59.

 Jesse James would be 73.

According to McCoy's book, It is John Thomas Samuel buried in Jesse's grave... or was, as he was exhumed and moved to be buried next to Zee, Jesse's wife, after she passed away. Then exhumed again much later to compare his DNA to descendants. The DNA tests were positive, only proving that the remains were a match to the James family... but it could have been Jesse or John Thomas, or any male offspring of Zerelda Cole James Simms Samuel.

Could it be that even though McCoy told a whopper, part of his account about James is true? Even the truth about Jesse James? If not, whatever happened to John Thomas Samuel? If he lived until 1932 as his family claimed, how is it that there are so few photographs of him?

 You have to wonder, how these discrepancies have been ignored so long...

 William Pinkerton, the detective blamed for the tragic explosion at the James/Samuels home, where little Archie Samuels was killed. He later confided that he intended to burn the house down.

McCoy's elaborate tale really hit the spot, for Twain and Jesse James enthusiasts. Although Samuel Clemens had spent most of his time in  Missouri across the state in Marion County, he had a lot in common with the outlaw. They had both grown up in Missouri river towns, he on the Mississippi, James on the Missouri. Raised in a slave-holding state, they both enlisted in local Confederate militias during the Civil War. Both claimed the discomfort of having killed men during the war and had trouble with wartime atrocities they witnessed. 

 The X's are Confederate guerilla engagements by either Quantrill or Bloody Bill Anderson. The money signs represent bank or train robberies by the James-Younger Gang.

Most of the engagements and atrocities committed by Bloody Bill Anderson and his guerillas, which included Jesse, were right between the two men's hometowns.  Half a dozen of the guerilla attacks were just a days ride from Hannibal, where Mark Twain based many of his writings. Twain openly described himself as a "border ruffian from the state of Missouri."  Thus both men hated the Pinkertons, politicians, and neither had much use for preachers.  All through JESSE, one can read Mark Twain's sentiments about war, slavery and the human race through Jesse's dialogue.

IF Twain met Jesse James as an old man and agreed to write his story, IF he wrote it or at least started it, IF Paine finished and typed it, then what Max McCoy published as a curiosity was in fact one of the most significant manuscripts of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. But alas, it was just out of McCoy's devious mind. And as wonderful as it is, it is bound to generate a whole knew generation of Jesse James mythology. I totally enjoyed the novel and it drove me crazy about six months until learned the truth about it. McCoy really created a stinker.

And deep down, I think he knew it.

By the way, Max McCoy is the creator of Indiana Jones and the author of several novels about him... and has written many books himself. After that kind of success, he might understandably have let a dead dog lie. But it was too tempting... a story, that if it had been true, would have been the story of the 20th century.

Later he has published groundbreaking information about Albert Bigelow Paine, and his astounding indiscretions, which you can read about below.