Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
TOUR DIARY – DAY ONE
April 19, 2017 – Dan Pence and Tom Nall, president and past president of the International James-Younger Gang Inc., will arrive at the 200-year-old Hemp House here in Danville today. Then for three days, we will tour Kentucky and preview historic sites in preparation for the speaking events and tours that are scheduled for the 2017 annual conference in Georgetown come September.
Today, we will begin at Constitution Square. We will talk about the enduring relationship between John M. James, Frank & Jesse’s grandfather, with Judge Harry Innes, his clerk & later Justice Thomas Todd, & Benjamin Sebastian of the Spanish Conspiracy. We will also address what role John M. James may have had in the ten Danville Conventions and how the Spanish Conspiracy led to his ruin.
Next, we will retrace the ride of Frank James, the Younger & Pence brothers with William Clark Quantrill when they rode through Danville in 1864 on a mission to “visit” President Lincoln.
We will tour their escape route from Danville to Perryville and up to Sally Van Arsdall’s farm outside Harrodsburg. There, Maj. James Bridgewater, whose wife was a Pence, caught up with the band and attacked them in the middle of a cold January night. Four of the band was killed. Previously, the James-Younger Gang Journal published my account of this event, “Why, Maj. Bridgewater?”
We will then tour Oakland Church cemetery where Quantrill ordered their fallen men to be buried. We also will visit Spring Hill Cemetery in Harrodsburg, where Frank James and Black Jack Chinn exhumed their slain from Oakland Church Cemetery and re-interred them in the Confederate plot at Spring Hill around 1898.
Returning to Danville, we will visit Bellevue Cemetery and the grave site of the grandparents of Clell Miller, Henry Logan Thurmond & Mary Kenley-Thurmond. Clell Miller was one of the James-Younger Gang. He was killed in the Northfield Bank robbery.
We will round off today’s tour in Danville with visits to Weisiger Park next to the Boyle County courthouse where Joseph McAlister James, aka Joseph McJames, operated the St. James Hotel. We also will stop by the parking lot on Third St. backing up to the Boyle County jail where Joseph McJames owned and operated James Hall, Danville’s first and original theater, and convention center.
In the coming two more days, we plan to tour in Woodford and Scott Counties.
DAY TWO on TOUR
April 20, 2017 – Yesterday, after a full day of touring numerous historic sites relating to the pioneer settlement of John M. James in Kentucky and his pioneer families of Pence, Nalle, Vardiman, & Sallee, we ended our tour at Bellevue Cemetery in Danville.
Standing before the graves of Clell Miller’s grandparents, I received the ultimate compliment from Dan Pence. Turning to me, Dan said, “My grandfather would have loved to have known you.”
Dan’s grandfather is Samuel Anderson Pence, the author of I Knew Frank…I Wish I had Known Jesse. This book and its companion book Quantrill’s Guerillas 1861-1865 compiles Pence’s lifetime accumulation of history, stories, facts, and data relating to Pence’s personal relationship with the social communities and family of Frank & Jesse James. Dan edited and published his grandfather’s book posthumously. So much of Dan’s book is new and previously unpublished history. I have used this book often in my own research and writing.
I was thrilled to think Dan thought so kindly about my research and writing. Dan’s generous compliment could not have thrilled me more.
Today, we continue our tour in Georgetown and Midway and the historic site related to the James family there.
DAY THREE on TOUR
April 21, 2017 – So far, very few complications have arisen regarding our programming for the September conference. Everything is working out well and in some cases better than first thought. This conference is going to be great!
However, while conducting our tour, revelations have occurred to us which surprised us. There really is no reason why the three of us, all raised in the upper Midwest, should find ourselves bound together by Jesse James. Yet, here we are.
Yesterday, Dan revealed his story “You have to go to Kentucky.”
As a trained chemist, grown up In Michigan, Dan knew nothing of his connections to Jesse James. Not until Dan’s son brought home a book one day about Jesse James and Dan began to look at his grandfather’s box of memorabilia, did Dan begin to follow his path of spiritual discovery.
Following the neglected leads left to him, Dan began his journey. Dan’s door of discovery opened when a near stranger instructed him “You have to go to Kentucky. When Dan did, like me Dan discovered the unexpected.
In the Kentucky corporate offices of Maker’s Mark Bourbon, Dan met with Bill Samuel. Bill showed Dan Bill’s own neglected box of family memorabilia. Among the artifacts in Bill’s box were photos of Dan’s grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather.
Ever since then Dan has been on his own personal tour to discover what meaning Jesse James holds for him. Even on this preview tour of historic sites in Kentucky and after publishings his grandfather’s books, Dan is still learning more.
The three of us boys from the upper Midwest agree. We are traveling a curious path of divinity. We fully expect more revelations to come. Come to Kentucky, and you can, too. Join us and tour with us at the 2017 annual conference of the James-Younger Gang.
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
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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.