This image came to my attention while preparing the final manuscript for Volume II of Jesse James Soul Liberty, This Bloody Ground for publication. Conrad Heyer was a contemporary of John M. James. Heyer was 102 years old when this image of him was recorded in 1852.
Heyer was a veteran of the American Revolution. He served in all the same locales as did John M. James, Jesse and Frank James’ grandfather, who is my principal subject for Volume II. Together with Joshua Logan Younger, a great-grandfather of the Younger Gang, all three were at Valley Forge with Gen. George Washington. All had been in the Continental Army, serving at the same time. While Younger and James were Southern men, Heyer was from Waldoboro, Maine, where it is said, Heyer was the first white child to be born in that community of German immigrants.
The geographic origins of the trio made it unlikely Heyer would have known John M. James or Joshua Logan Younger personally. But his surviving photographic image gives pause to wonder what James and Younger may have looked like, had each lived another generation longer to be photographed.
Years later, yours truly still is quoted on my challenge to chopper celebrity Jesse Gregory James, aka Jesse James. I’m still waiting for his DNA profile. … See MoreSee Less
THE FIRST IMMIGRANT TO AMERICA OF OUR JAMES FAMILY . . .
Stray Leaves, our website below, now reaches back into the 17th century to bring you the story of our first immigrant, John James, in narrative form.
John’s story comes to us through original documents and seasoned source citations, which are also provided.
What John James Tells Us • He arrived at Jamestown. • He transported 10 indentured people. • He was rewarded with a land patent. • The location of his land can be visited today. • He and his neighbors comprised the important founding families of Virginia. • The location of origination of the James in the Old World, as Jesse James family historians say is Pembrokeshire, Wales is disputed and unproven. • The name identity of John’s wife as formerly stated by traditional genealogists is disproved. • John James arrived as an oligarch and royalist with no pretensions to democracy or self-rule. • Early James family wealth was accrued in the tobacco culture and by land speculation. • John and his family were followers of the Church of England. • His children and grandchildren remained savvy and street-wise, relating well with common people. • Generations beyond the grandchildren of John James produced significant diversity in America’s people and culture.
The first foothold of the James family in the New World was secured by John James, the Immigrant. John was born about 1623. Sometime before 1690, he died.