In 1947, the long-widowed Mary Louisa James Burns wrote to R. C. Heaton in Paso Robles, California. She sent him a history of her father, Drury Woodson James, a founder of the town. In 1905, Heaton had purchased the home Drury Woodson built for his family, the same home in which Mary Louise was born. The residence was one of many buildings Drury Woodson James built as part of his El Paso de Robles Hotel, around which he built the town of Paso Robles. In one correspondence, written by her granddaughter Mary Joan Malley Beamis, Mary Louise James identifies and tags the early building of Paso Robles.
Joan Beamis transcribes the identification tags dictated by her grandmother Mary Louise James…
This is from a wood cut. I have the original copy.
- D. W. James Home – 1969 or 70. I was born in this house. A very good likeness considering.
- South Cottage where your “Nana” was married (long cottage).
- Original Hot Springs Hotel.
- Patsy Dunn store. (Ed.: D.W.J.’s father-in-law Patrick Dunn) My father moved this and we used it for storage for many years. It was torn down in 1960.
- The Ralston Cottage, or at least its location.
- Bath House – original – another was built here but burned in about 1910.
- Club House
- Tenth Street
- Old Stage Road, now Spring St.
- Tenth St.
- Park Water Station
- (does not appear)
- Stagecoach approaching
- Sunnyside Cottage, or Cottage A
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LETTER FROM R. C. HEATON TO MARY LOUISE JAMES BURNS
Paso Robles, Cal. April 20th, 1948
Mrs. E.F. Burns
Somersworth, N.H.
Dear Mrs. Burns: Thank you for the copy of your father’s history sent me by the Paso Robles chamber of commerce at your request. I have it filed away in the history of San Luis Obispo county.
Thinking that you would like to see a picture of the old home place as it was in your younger days I had some copies made and am enclosing one to you. I sent one to Carrie.
Please tell me when the house was built and when your folks moved in – also anything that you recall about the place.
Frank and Jesse James were out to California twice but I do not have the record of what years or where they stayed.
This would be interesting to some people.
The visit of Carrie and Hattie B.* last year with us is a happy remembrance.
Too bad that your father could not have ended his days peacefully in the grand old hotel** he had the faith and courage to build in those early days.
Too few people appreciate what he and that other active generous citizen – Uncle Jim Blackburn – done for this community and its old time residents.
Best wishes,
R.C. HEATON
* The references to Carrie and Hattie is to Mary Louise’s sisters Carolina F. James Maxwell and Helen James Bennett.
** The reference to the grand old hotel is to the larger resort hotel D. W. James built in the rear of the original pioneer stagecoach hotel. The Springs Hotel burned to the ground in 1910.
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In 2002, the friends and family of Frank & Jesse James reunited at the Paso Robles Inn to celebrate Drury Woodson James.
Has this photograph of Jesse ever been published in its entirety? Ive only found this close up of the original and drawings or sketches depicting it.
I don't know what you mean when you say "published in its entirety."
Has the full original image ever been in a book, magazine or on television perhaps? Im assuming all photographs of Jesse are copy righted or owned. Hence why i've never seen the complete photograph shown above. Im not exactly sure where the image originates from but it appears to be one of the better photos of the outlaw and yet i've never seen it. The only photos that get used of Jesse are mostly his wedding photo, civil war guerilla photo, and his after death photo's. I wonder why to this day the same 3 or 4 images of Jesse get republished and used for books, online articles, T.V ect. When there's plenty of photographs of Jesse to be used.
The following website maps the Trail of Tears routes of the Choctaw and Chickasaw family members of our James family. Also shown is the route of our Cherokee ancestry among some of our in-law families.
In future decades, as research into this topic progresses, it's foreseeable that these Indian removal routes will become major tourist travel destinations.
www.journeyofsurvival.org/#
NOT SURPRISING TO US. Jesse James is known to visit Talbott Tavern in Bardstown, Ky. Just when Jesse was there is unknown. Louis Bourbon, the 3rd Duke of Orleans who became the last king of France known as the Citizen King, also visited Talbott Tavern, as the story below by Sam Terry writes. Louis was traveling America while waiting for the French Revolution to remove Napoleon. Probably only known to the James family's community of Stray Leaves is the fact that Jesse and the Citizen King are 9th cousins, 6 times removed. The Leaf Blower of Stray Leaves is a 10th cousin of Louis, 8 times removed.
What it's like in the office of Stray Leaves.
Oh my, that is a lot of files.
Amen lot of history there
Haydon Calvert "Bud" Cooper passed last night in his 93rd year. Bud's kinship spanned many lines of the James family. He was a 6th cousin of Frank & Jesse James, as well as a 6th cousin of Frank's cohort Col. John Pendleton "Black Jack" Chinn. He also shared kinship with numerous James relatives.
Bud's ancestors arrived from England and Wales to the Virginia Colony in the early 1600s. They followed identical migration paths as our James from Virginia into the Kentucky frontier, then into the American heartland.
Bud's grandparents descended from the same Calvert & Dorsey families as Frank & Jesse, and the same Morgan family as Col. Chinn. They migrated from Harrodsburg, Ky. into the Far West. They settled in Utah and founded the town of Myton, where Bud was Myton's City Councilman, museum founder, docent, virtually all his life. His daughter Kathleen Cooper followed as Mayor of Myton in Bud's footsteps.
You can find videos of Bud at his Myton museum on YouTube. He loved telling history as much as being history.