Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Celebrity attachment to an American outlaw is good for business. Since his assassination, countless newspapers and businesses have capitalized on the icon of Jesse Woodson James. Like most advertising and promotion, though, what passes as fact is more often than not lies, distortions, or simply fraud.
Today’s event of lies and fraudulent branding comes from Kelly Kazek, in an article Kazek wrote on al.com, a website for three Alabama newspapers.
Writing about “Haunting Tales from Ghost Town Tours,” Kazek featured the St. James Hotel in Selma, Alabama. The journalist wrote, “In 1881, Frank and Jesse James and members of their gang took a vacation from robbing and killing and vacationed at The Brantly, according to the hotel website.” The Brantly today is Selma’s historic St. James Hotel.
A review of the website for the St. James Hotel confirms what the hotel claims. “Following the war, Benjamin Sterling Turner operated the hotel; the first African-American ever elected to the United States Congress and is reputed to have hosted the legendary outlaw brothers Frank and Jesse James in 1881.”
If true, this would be welcome new history to the Jesse James genre, on many levels. What exactly was the relationship of Turner to the notorious outlaws? To what purpose were Frank and Jesse associating with an elected member of the United States Congress? We know nothing about Benjamin Sterling Turner that links him to Frank and Jesse James. But we do know where Frank and Jesse were in 1881. The story offered by Kazek and the St. James Hotel don’t add up.
Wishing to confront the St. James Hotel with the known and recognized factual record, we emailed Kelly Kazek, asking how long her story would stay on the internet. Her tart email response was, “As long as there is an internet.” Really?
Kazek also asked what claims we believed were false. She didn’t wait for our response, however, before our email response was blocked as spam. Fine enough, Kazek can be notified of our reply below or via Facebook.
Kazek had added to her story of the St. James that the ghost of Jesse James stalks the old hotel in “cowboy clothes” with a girlfriend named Lucinda and Jesse’s dog which “accompanied the James gang.”
We stated in reply to Kazek’s question, “There was no James Gang after 1876 when the Younger brothers were captured, convicted, and imprisoned. Jesse James lived in Nebraska and St. Joe, Missouri in the period the hotel claims. Jesse James never was a cowboy. He was first a partisan combatant of the Civil War, and after, though arguably, a criminal. No evidence has ever been produced linking Jesse James to any woman other than his wife. He was a devoted husband and father.”
Straying from historical fact is expected among journalists with no claim to history. But Kelley Kazek is the author of The Hidden History of Auburn (AL.) and several other history books. You expect factual reporting from such an author. Then again, Kelly Kazek disappeared on us as quickly as her ghost of Jesse James.
Stray Leaves Daily
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.