Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
BOOK REVIEW: Baker, L. C., The Ones That Got Away: Knights of the Golden Circle Exposed (no publication information given) pp.177, some photos and illustrations, no endnotes, bibliography, or index. ISBN 978149959393, soft cover $14.99
The Knights of the Golden Circle seems to attract all kinds of strange people and theories. This book, indeed, contains some strange theories and a lot of misinformation. The writing is littered with errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The photographs and illustrations used are of very poor quality. The author gives little or no information about where he got his material.
The author would have us believe that Lewis Cass, who resigned as Secretary of State because Buchanan took little or no action against the secessionists, and Illinois Senator Orville Browning were connected with the Knights of the Golden Circle. He hints that both men may have had something to do with Lincoln’s assassination. He also makes the preposterous accusation that Browning, a close friend and confidante of Lincoln for many years, carried on a lengthy love affair with Mary Todd Lincoln!
There is a lot of misinformation about Ben Ficklin and his association with Sen. William M. Gwin of California and the freighting firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell. He says Ficklin was a West Point graduate. This is not so, Ficklin graduated from Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Ficklin was acquainted with Sen. Gwin and Gwin did back the Pony Express, which was first Ficklin’s idea. Gwin was a farsighted man who fought long and hard for all sorts of development on the Pacific Coast that would benefit California and the nation. Gwin was, as one author put it, “adept at reconciling contradictory forces for his own political advantage”. However, to state that Gwin was trying to obtain a monopoly in the opium trade to raise money for the Knights of the Golden Circle is way out there in left field.
The author’s idea that Russell, Majors and Waddell and Ficklin had a monopoly of freighting during the “Mormon War” and made a fortune is completely wrong. Russell, Majors and Waddell lost a half million dollars when their wagons and livestock was stolen or destroyed by the Mormons and the Indians. The Pony Express also lost money and the company went broke and sold out to Ben Holladay.
Jesse James gets into the story in the chapter on Captain Logan Enyart. Enyart served in Company G. of the First Missouri C.S.A. He was married to a sister of Col. Richard B. Chiles, his commanding officer. Chiles later joined Quantrill’s Raiders and was killed during the war. Enyart probably knew Frank and Jesse James during the war. The author would have us believe Jesse James made regular visits to Enyart’s home in Nebraska City, Nebraska after the war. The author states that is was a well known fact that Enyart had a secret underground passage between his house and stables over 100 yards long to give the James gang entrance to his house. (He must have borrowed this one from some Dalton Gang mythology.) The author did not, however, seem to know that Enyart did invite Frank James to stay at his home when Frank was an official race starter in Nebraska City in August 1909.
Many other examples of bad information in this book, could be pointed out. The above should be enough to tell the discerning readers to save their book money for something more worthwhile.
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Daily updates from the family of Frank & Jesse James with stories, photos, & two searchable genealog
VIDEO of the Clay County Board of Commissioners bestowing honor upon our James colleague & friend Charlies Broomfield. Recognition begins at 2:00 min. mark.
Congratulations Charlie!!
We have hints from the Clay County Archives in charge of James Farm in Kearney, Missouri, that a road leading to the farm will be renamed Charles Broomfield Rd. Charlie was a Clay County Commissioner who took an active role in arranging the sale and transfer of James Farm from the James family to Clay County.
Cant say that I understand the significance of this.
Do you have the address of Jesse & Frank James Cabin in Paseo Robles, California?
SLAVE TRADERS AMONG OUR JAMES FAMILY . . . For a decade Stray Leaves has been researching this most distressing discovery. Finally, it’s time to bring this story to light. There’s much to report. The entire story will take time to tell. As we begin, we are also compelled to reconcile what this history means for us. More specifically for those who are now known to descend from these slave traders, whom it can be assumed never knew of this element of their ancestry, but also for the James family as a whole. The resolution will not come easy.
Forks of the Road Slave Market – Violence In Silence
ericjames.org
“Just at the Forks, where the Washington and Kingston, or Palatine roads converge, stood a low squatty frame building used during the winter monthsI ran a DNA test on all the James names I could find in these stories and didn't get 1 DNA match. My DNA is closer to Jesse than that James line is. I am looking into it being through Robert Thomason (step grandfather of Jesse Woodson James) and Julia Ann Singleton (Aunt to Jesse Woodson James).
I am a descendant of Betty G Woodson.
Waterproof, La in Tensas Parish to be more exact.
Tensas Parish. J. G. James and M. Kerrigan.
The King family. Descendants of Viking slayers. archive.org/stream/Kingswood/Kingswood%20reduced_djvu.txt
"In the middle of 1864, Captain Jason W. James was on scouting duty in the southern part of Madison Parish. About eight o'clock one morning he and his company arrived at the Plantation home of Hr. Joshua James on Roundaway Bayou, who also owned the Ione Plantation in Tensas Parish." You will have to read the rest. I am not posting it here. 😲 😲 😲 sites.rootsweb.com/~lamadiso/articles/ward/chap05.htm
And I do believe this James line is connected to Lucille Ball.
And speaking of slave traders. Nicholas Trammell is mixed in with the Carrigans somehow. www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/trammell-nicholas
And I am a descendant of Elizabeth Woodson Thomas. Wife of Captain Edmund King.
I am also showing DNA matches to the James grandparents of Jesse Woodson James and all 8 of his great grandparents. This is what I need help figuring out. All of my James DNA matches will be in the replies to this comment. In this screenshot they are all the white ones
The sons of Colonial Edmund King.
I am a descendant of Mary Joicy who was widow Woodson, mother of Elizabeth Woodson Thomas.
By the way I am not a Kerrigan by DNA. I am a Carrigan. Civil War name change. Descendant of William Michael Carrigan and Nancy Holt. Nancy Holt was the daughter of Michael Holt III and Rachel Rainey. youtu.be/IsK2eSTVW8A
This content isn’t available right now
This content isn't available right now
When this happens, it’s usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it’s been deleted.Where does Lucille Ball fit?
FIND-A-GRAVE BLUNDERS LEAVE JAMES FAMILY HOWLING . . . Can you spot the errata in this Find a Grave post for the grandfather of Frank & Jesse James? The most glaring deception is the photograph!
History tells us the photograph was invented about the time John M. James was dying. Neither history, nor the administrator of this posting, Charlotte Raley McConaha, can tell us is how photographic technology made its way from France to the distant American frontier to take a photo of John M. James, months before his demise.
Another imprecise miscalculation in this post is the attribution of the middle name “Martin” to John M. James. The name never has been proved by evidence. To guess the name is unreliable and wrong.