Jesse James Treasures: Do They Likely Still Exist?

[ECS]

Yea you are right someone made them about sixty bucks if they had any photos to go with the story. I do not believe it. I believe J. Frank Dalton's story more.

As with other treasure stories of the same caliber, the real historical record clearly indicates that this did not happen, as Maximilian did not have 15 wagons of gold, silver, and jewelry leave Mexico. That is pure lore.
Jesse James was never involved in anyway with Maximilian, once again tall tale lore.
Maximilian did however, give each member of the firing squad a gold 20peso coin before his execution.

What was the J Frank Dalton version and when and who did he tell his tale and was it ever verified, as one of his major claims was called into question?

You are correct, Franklin, that many articles that appeared in the treasure magazines of days past were embellished fodder of minimal fact embellished to glamorize the tale presented churned out by pulp writers without the concern of being called out by fact checkers- the articles were for the purpose of entertainment afterall.

 

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[Ditlihi]

As with other treasure stories of the same caliber, the real historical record clearly indicates that this did not happen, as Maximilian did not have 15 wagons of gold, silver, and jewelry leave Mexico. That is pure lore.
Jesse James was never involved in anyway with Maximilian, once again tall tale lore.
Maximilian did however, give each member of the firing squad a gold 20peso coin before his execution.

What was the J Frank Dalton version and when and who did he tell his tale and was it ever verified, as one of his major claims was called into question?

You are correct, Franklin, that many articles that appeared in the treasure magazines of days past were embellished fodder of minimal fact embellished to glamorize the tale presented churned out by pulp writers without the concern of being called out by fact checkers- the articles were for the purpose of entertainment afterall.

Point well made, ECS. I think we're seeing evidence of that with the lore surrounding JWJ. But I have a deeper question....WAS it all just for entertainment value...or was some of it planted disinformation to serve a bigger purpose?

 

[Honest Samuel]

Planted disinformation to serve a bigger purposes.

 

[Texas Jay]

Message about Maximilian from Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery group

Here's one of many messages in our Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery archives about Jesse James and Maximilian and Maximilian's treasure.
***
From:
Bison Bill's Weird West

***

"History tells us that Jesse James died in 1882, shot by a former friend, Bob Ford. Yet many believe that James faked his death, and lived for years under the name J. Frank Dalton.

Here his story--a true story of the Weird West . . .

Jesse James reportedly belonged to a secret society, The Knights of the Golden Circle. Other members included Jefferson Davis, Bedford Forrest, and William Quantrill (leader of the Confederate guerilla outfit Quantrill's Raiders, with whom James rode). Some believe the society was created by the notorious Albert Pike, the subject of many a Masonic conspiracy theory.

According to the book Jesse James Was One of His Names (written by Del Schrader, with Jesse James III), the American Civil War did not really end in 1865, but continued to be fought "underground" for 19 more years. Its highly sophisticated spy network, operated by the Knights of the Golden Circle, continued for even longer and was involved in many subversive activities. One of these was train robbery, a specialty of the James Gang, the purpose being to enrich the coffers of the Confederate underground. As a Confederate agent, James was also involved in smuggling guns and ammunition to the Plains Indians, as well as providing training in guerilla tactics, for use against their common enemy, General George Armstrong Custer and the Union Army.

After General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomatox, a force of 2,000 Missouri cavalry and a full regiment of Confederate-led Red Bone Indians from East Texas, led by General J. O. Shelby journeyed to Mexico to join their ally, the Emperor Maximilian. When they were later threatened by Mexican patriots under the leadership of Benito Juarez, an elite force led by William Quantrill and Jesse James was sent to rescue them.

While in Mexico, James was enlisted in an operation to smuggle Maximilian's treasure out of Mexico. On their way north, the James force learned that Maximilian had "apparently" been executed by the Mexican patriots. He and several others had been shot by firing squad, then loaded into carts and carried away for burial. But the gravesite ceremony was infiltrated by Red Bone Indians, who noticed signs of life in Maximilian. The Indians talked the Mexicans into allowing them to give him a separate burial. Later he was nursed back to health and transported to East Texas.

According to Schrader, Maximilian changed his name to John Maxi and began living undercover in North America. Jesse James traveled to Europe, found a double of Maximilian's wife, Charlotta, then smuggled the real Charlotta back to America, where she was reunited with her husband. The man buried in Maximilian's grave in Vienna is a German seaman who died in a gunfight in Vera Cruz, Mexico. "Switching bodies is a subterfuge as old as mankind," writes Schrader, "and the Golden Circle certainly had no monopoly on this practice."

For their assistance, Maximilian rewarded the Knights of the Golden Circle $12.5 million in gold, and Jesse James $5 million.

Jesse James was now a wealthy man, with enough power and influence to fake his own death--and, with the law hot on his trail, this was undoubtedly a wise move.

According to Bud Hardcastle (a Jesse James historian), the man who was killed and identified as James was Charlie Bigelow. "Bigelow was robbing things and using Jesse's name, and that's one of the reasons they probably identified him as Jesse . . . and Bigelow was buried as Jesse James."

Supposedly, Mrs. Jesse James was in reality Mrs. Bigelow--a prostitute who had been bribed to identify the corpse as that of James.

Hardcastle states that others who identified the dead body in 1882 had ulterior motives as relatives or members of Quantrill's Raiders. These men had all ridden with Jesse and taken an oath to protect each other. By identifying the body as Jesse James, they were setting Jesse free.

However, one member of the James gang, an illiterate black man by the name of John Trammell, left a coded message revealing the hoax.

Acording to Schrader, Trammell scratched some messages into some wet bricks. One brick "contained an image of a Spanish dagger, the numerals 777, KGC [Knights of the Golden Circle] and JJ [Jesse James]. . . ." The bricks, which were buried in St. Joseph Missouri, were discovered in 1966.

Jesse James began living under the name J. Frank Dalton. (The name "Dalton" was his mother's maiden name. The initial "J" stood for "Jesse," and "Frank" was his brother's name.) As Chief of the Inner Sanctum of the Knights of the Golden Circle, James was one of the most powerful men in America. Schrader writes, "The Knights had industrial as well as military spies on both sides of the Atlantic."

Among the activities of James/Dalton was the murder of John Wilkes Booth, another Confederate spy who did not die when history says he did.

After assassinating President Abraham Lincoln, Booth was smuggled by the Confederate underground to Texas, where he began living under the name John St. Helen. In the 1870s he worked as a bartender in a saloon in Granbury, Texas, and began telling people about his past. When the Knights of the Golden Circle found out, the decision was made to silence him. Booth fled Granbury.

Jesse James, along with William "Wild Bill" Lincoln (a distant cousin of President Lincoln), tracked Booth to Enid, Oklahoma, where he had assumed the name David George.

In a sworn statement, "Wild Bill" Lincoln wrote: "Our branch of the Lincoln family was never satisfied with what really happened to Booth, and I spent fourteen years of my life running down the true story. Strangely enough, I learned it from Jesse W. james, head of the Confederate underground. I was present at Booth's real death."

According to Lincoln, he and James crept into Booth's room and tricked him into drinking a glass of arsenic-laced lemonade. The massive amount of arsenic consumed by Booth caused his body to mummify. James arranged for the body to be exhibited on a national carnival tour. The mummy's present whereabouts are unknown.

As "J. Frank Dalton," Jesse James turned his $5 million reward from Maximilian into an even greater fortune. He invested in the Texas oil boom, and was also a backer of the Hughes Tool Company (founded by Howard Hughes' father). He was also one of Henry Ford's early investors.

James/Dalton died at the age of 103 in Granbury, Texas. Many people who had known the outlaw in life swore that Dalton was the real Jesse James."

***

 

[Kace]

That IS rather interesting! Would like to see that record myself.

And my family is the same...we had not just a couple but several William T's sitting in the tree. And I had a brother named John Wesley. On the other side I have GGG's named George Washington ____, Christopher Columbus ____, and Isaac Newton ____. Strange world back then, eh?

Yes it was and still is!

Wouldn't It Be A Hoot If We All Are Distant Cousins?!!! Stranger things have happened!

Here's One;

My Family is Very Involved in Car Racing. My Best Friend Who is 3yrs Older than I am were at a track watching the races.

Her first cousin that I've known forever but is about 10yrs older than my BF came up to her and handed her a family tree packet and asked BF to fill it out on her immediate family chart so she could add it to her genealogy that she was doing. She gave BF a copy of what she had done already. As soon as cousin walked away BF handed it to me and said Fill this Out For Me, I Don't Want To...She knew I had done my family and she had zero interest in it.

Well, I started looking through it and about fell off the bleachers...It Was MY Family! I Got the Chills! Like I Did When Reb Said William T Wright of VA!

BF and I grew up One Block Apart...Went to the same school...Her Mother was my bus driver from kindergarten thru sixth grade. Both of our families are very close, her youngest brother and I are the same age. Her Mother was one of 4 girls in her family. When BF's Aunt, who I knew really well found out, she said Are You Related To H____? I said yes he's my Dads Brother, Why? She says OMG, We dated all thru High School and planned on getting married until he came to pick me up one night with lipstick on his shirt that wasn't my color!! hahaha

Both of our Immediate families Still Talk and Laugh about what a small world it really is!

When I did my family...Like So Many of The Times, There were 10-12 kids or more. It got to be too much to do All of them right then, so when I got to the MO territories opening and the family settling there, again there were 12 kids. I documented them and who they married but there were 5 girls who married and two married brothers. Very confusing keeping that straight!

I bookmarked it to come back later and finished my direct line. Turns out one of the girls who married brothers was the sister of my Fathers ggGranfather who was my BF's Mothers ggGrandmother... They were Brother and Sister! I Never Picked Up On It because all of the sisters descendants were women and my fathers were men. Different Names on the Women that I hadn't finished at that time! Is That Not Crazy or What!! This was in 1995ish...They never went 'Down Home' Like We Did so BF didn't recognize the name of the town when we would go down to the farm.

Epilogue; My Dad Died in April,1989, BF Mother Died December, 1989...Same Dr, Same Diagnosis, Same Surgery, Same Hospital, Same ICU Room...neither of them ever left ICU. Dad died 23days after surgery. BF Mother died 33days after surgery. Neither of Them Should of Had That Particular Operation.

I Added Health and Cause of Death to My Genealogy, Looked Up Death Certificates and Talked To Many Distant Relatives that I probably would not of contacted otherwise. We had the first reunion of the descendents of the MO 12 where they got to see where their ancestors lived and died. There are a lot of similarities in lives and experiences. Genealogy has been a fun and interesting project.

A Lot Like This With All Of You!

Kace

 

[Kace]

Planted disinformation to serve a bigger purposes.

Thank You Samuel....Is that your opinion or do you know that to be a fact? Please let D and the rest of us know how you are certain of your statement.

 

[Kace]

Here's one of many messages in our Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery archives about Jesse James and Maximilian and Maximilian's treasure.
***
From:
Bison Bill's Weird West

***

"History tells us that Jesse James died in 1882, shot by a former friend, Bob Ford. Yet many believe that James faked his death, and lived for years under the name J. Frank Dalton.

Here his story--a true story of the Weird West . . .

Jesse James reportedly belonged to a secret society, The Knights of the Golden Circle. Other members included Jefferson Davis, Bedford Forrest, and William Quantrill (leader of the Confederate guerilla outfit Quantrill's Raiders, with whom James rode). Some believe the society was created by the notorious Albert Pike, the subject of many a Masonic conspiracy theory.

According to the book Jesse James Was One of His Names (written by Del Schrader, with Jesse James III), the American Civil War did not really end in 1865, but continued to be fought "underground" for 19 more years. Its highly sophisticated spy network, operated by the Knights of the Golden Circle, continued for even longer and was involved in many subversive activities. One of these was train robbery, a specialty of the James Gang, the purpose being to enrich the coffers of the Confederate underground. As a Confederate agent, James was also involved in smuggling guns and ammunition to the Plains Indians, as well as providing training in guerilla tactics, for use against their common enemy, General George Armstrong Custer and the Union Army.

After General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomatox, a force of 2,000 Missouri cavalry and a full regiment of Confederate-led Red Bone Indians from East Texas, led by General J. O. Shelby journeyed to Mexico to join their ally, the Emperor Maximilian. When they were later threatened by Mexican patriots under the leadership of Benito Juarez, an elite force led by William Quantrill and Jesse James was sent to rescue them.

While in Mexico, James was enlisted in an operation to smuggle Maximilian's treasure out of Mexico. On their way north, the James force learned that Maximilian had "apparently" been executed by the Mexican patriots. He and several others had been shot by firing squad, then loaded into carts and carried away for burial. But the gravesite ceremony was infiltrated by Red Bone Indians, who noticed signs of life in Maximilian. The Indians talked the Mexicans into allowing them to give him a separate burial. Later he was nursed back to health and transported to East Texas.

According to Schrader, Maximilian changed his name to John Maxi and began living undercover in North America. Jesse James traveled to Europe, found a double of Maximilian's wife, Charlotta, then smuggled the real Charlotta back to America, where she was reunited with her husband. The man buried in Maximilian's grave in Vienna is a German seaman who died in a gunfight in Vera Cruz, Mexico. "Switching bodies is a subterfuge as old as mankind," writes Schrader, "and the Golden Circle certainly had no monopoly on this practice."

For their assistance, Maximilian rewarded the Knights of the Golden Circle $12.5 million in gold, and Jesse James $5 million.

Jesse James was now a wealthy man, with enough power and influence to fake his own death--and, with the law hot on his trail, this was undoubtedly a wise move.

According to Bud Hardcastle (a Jesse James historian), the man who was killed and identified as James was Charlie Bigelow. "Bigelow was robbing things and using Jesse's name, and that's one of the reasons they probably identified him as Jesse . . . and Bigelow was buried as Jesse James."

Supposedly, Mrs. Jesse James was in reality Mrs. Bigelow--a prostitute who had been bribed to identify the corpse as that of James.

Hardcastle states that others who identified the dead body in 1882 had ulterior motives as relatives or members of Quantrill's Raiders. These men had all ridden with Jesse and taken an oath to protect each other. By identifying the body as Jesse James, they were setting Jesse free.

However, one member of the James gang, an illiterate black man by the name of John Trammell, left a coded message revealing the hoax.

Acording to Schrader, Trammell scratched some messages into some wet bricks. One brick "contained an image of a Spanish dagger, the numerals 777, KGC [Knights of the Golden Circle] and JJ [Jesse James]. . . ." The bricks, which were buried in St. Joseph Missouri, were discovered in 1966.

Jesse James began living under the name J. Frank Dalton. (The name "Dalton" was his mother's maiden name. The initial "J" stood for "Jesse," and "Frank" was his brother's name.) As Chief of the Inner Sanctum of the Knights of the Golden Circle, James was one of the most powerful men in America. Schrader writes, "The Knights had industrial as well as military spies on both sides of the Atlantic."

Among the activities of James/Dalton was the murder of John Wilkes Booth, another Confederate spy who did not die when history says he did.

After assassinating President Abraham Lincoln, Booth was smuggled by the Confederate underground to Texas, where he began living under the name John St. Helen. In the 1870s he worked as a bartender in a saloon in Granbury, Texas, and began telling people about his past. When the Knights of the Golden Circle found out, the decision was made to silence him. Booth fled Granbury.

Jesse James, along with William "Wild Bill" Lincoln (a distant cousin of President Lincoln), tracked Booth to Enid, Oklahoma, where he had assumed the name David George.

In a sworn statement, "Wild Bill" Lincoln wrote: "Our branch of the Lincoln family was never satisfied with what really happened to Booth, and I spent fourteen years of my life running down the true story. Strangely enough, I learned it from Jesse W. james, head of the Confederate underground. I was present at Booth's real death."

According to Lincoln, he and James crept into Booth's room and tricked him into drinking a glass of arsenic-laced lemonade. The massive amount of arsenic consumed by Booth caused his body to mummify. James arranged for the body to be exhibited on a national carnival tour. The mummy's present whereabouts are unknown.

As "J. Frank Dalton," Jesse James turned his $5 million reward from Maximilian into an even greater fortune. He invested in the Texas oil boom, and was also a backer of the Hughes Tool Company (founded by Howard Hughes' father). He was also one of Henry Ford's early investors.

James/Dalton died at the age of 103 in Granbury, Texas. Many people who had known the outlaw in life swore that Dalton was the real Jesse James."

***
View attachment 1496233

WOW...That is a lot to absorb! I've got to read that again! Thanks for posting that TJ!... it gives much more to think about with JFD...

 

[Loke]

Planted disinformation to serve a bigger purposes.

I see 'Connecticut Sam' is up to his usual tricks again ... serving us all with intelligent and meaningful comments ...

 

[sdcfia]

Point well made, ECS. I think we're seeing evidence of that with the lore surrounding JWJ. But I have a deeper question....WAS it all just for entertainment value...or was some of it planted disinformation to serve a bigger purpose?

Great question D. Much of what we think we know about JWJ by definition is disinformative (intentional or otherwise) simply because of the inconsistencies and contradictions that have arisen from their sources - many of them alleged kin. This sort of sophisticated cold trail obviously leads in spirals. Pick your trajectory.

Re a bigger purpose, a very well-informed friend - unfortunately deceased - had interesting speculations about the James family's origins and, since 1975, JWJ's alleged role in the KGC. This brings the focus to the KGC itself (or whatever you prefer to call the Organization), perhaps a prototype of today's Deep State.

By the way, the Black Book original hardcover can now be had for $134. This is quite a reduction from what has been asked for the past several years. https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?...=jesse%20james%20was%20one%20of%20his%20names

 

[ECS]

... I believe J. Frank Dalton's story more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Frank_Dalton
There have been various accounts of Jesse W James "living" long after his murder by that dirty little coward Robert Ford.

Most are fabrication by various writers:
http://ericjames.otg/wordpress/tag/del-schrader
Which brings us to Delos Wayne Schrader's 1975 book written with Jesse Lee James III, who provided most of the information in that book.
Jesse Lee James III was really Orvis Lee Howk, who in 1961 wrote the book "JESSE JAMES AND THE LOST CAUSE" using this James alias as credentials that he was a descendant of Jesse W James (he was not), and disappeared in 1984 after the Federal government issued an arrest warrant for mail fraud. Not the most reliable of source material, as there are many factual errors in this book that can be verified.

Re: Howk/Hoke and Del Schrader - Genealogy.com

 

[ECS]

Point well made, ECS. I think we're seeing evidence of that with the lore surrounding JWJ. But I have a deeper question....WAS it all just for entertainment value...or was some of it planted disinformation to serve a bigger purpose?

...or just creative embellishments for magazine articles and to sell books.
Conspiracies and tales of faked deaths are a lot more exciting to read than actual historical facts.
Legends and lore do have a certain appeal for some with no research provided or required for believability.

 

[sdcfia]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Frank_Dalton
There have been various accounts of Jesse W James "living" long after his murder by that dirty little coward Robert Ford.

Most are fabrication by various writers:
http://ericjames.otg/wordpress/tag/del-schrader
Which brings us to Delos Wayne Schrader's 1975 book written with Jesse Lee James III, who provided most of the information in that book.
Jesse Lee James III was really Orvis Lee Howk, who in 1961 wrote the book "JESSE JAMES AND THE LOST CAUSE" using this James alias as credentials that he was a descendant of Jesse W James (he was not), and disappeared in 1984 after the Federal government issued an arrest warrant for mail fraud. Not the most reliable of source material, as there are many factual errors in this book that can be verified.

Re: Howk/Hoke and Del Schrader - Genealogy.com

The Black Book was mostly written as an allegory, IMO. Of course Jesse James was neither all those people nor a participant in all the deeds covered in the book. However, I suspect the key message may have been that those named influential people themselves (not James himself) were private members of a clandestine group and some of the events recounted may have gone down as described (not necessarily with James as the protagonist). When looked at this way, the book becomes food for thought instead of a joke.

I agree that much James lore may be balderdash, but relying on ad hominem attacks against various contributors is a slippery slope on which it's hard to keep your bearings. Unless you somehow have real skin in the game, you're forced to take sides based on your best guess of what the facts really are. Trouble is, facts can be created, destroyed and altered in ways beyond our abilities to detect. As Tolstoy said, "History would be a wonderful thing if only it were true."

 

[ECS]

... Trouble is, facts can be created, destroyed and altered in ways beyond our abilities to detect...

...and that is what lends itself to the creation of these fantastic claims derived from lore and legends.
For example, disregarding the articles in treasure magazines and books about Maximilian's treasure, does any information outside of these articles and books exist that documents Maximilian's 15 treasure wagons?
...or the embalmed body on display in Mexico City was not that of Maximilian, or the body entombed in Vienna- The Hapsburgs would definitely know if this was not the body their relation?

 

[Sallysue]

There are so many stories on J.James WOW I wish I really knew

 

[sdcfia]

...and that is what lends itself to the creation of these fantastic claims derived from lore and legends.
For example, disregarding the articles in treasure magazines and books about Maximilian's treasure, does any information outside of these articles and books exist that documents Maximilian's 15 treasure wagons?
...or the embalmed body on display in Mexico City was not that of Maximilian, or the body entombed in Vienna- The Hapsburgs would definitely know if this was not the body their relation?

To answer your question - I don't know if any of that stuff is true. However, another pesky thing to consider is that it's difficult or impossible to prove a negative. So, all we can do is develop our working models based on the best evidence available and try to keep our biases and personal preferences at bay, which is difficult.

 

[franklin]

Your post deserves more than a "LIKE" 100X

 

[Kace]

Planted disinformation to serve a bigger purposes.

Samuel, Have You Found Any Pertinent Information On JOHN NEWMAN EDWARDS? Please let us know what you've found on him. Thank You!

 

[ECS]

To answer your question - I don't know if any of that stuff is true. However, another pesky thing to consider is that it's difficult or impossible to prove a negative...

That is the point being made-weighing actual documented facts against the claimed lore does reveal the lore lacking outside collaborative documenting evidence, and that by its merits presents a body of doubt as to the validity of that lore.
The worn argument of "impossible to prove a negative" always fails due to the complete lack of evidence on support of the stated lore is faced with the full body of actual documented factual evidence.

 

[ECS]

... So, all we can do is develop our working models based on the best evidence available and try to keep our biases and personal preferences at bay, which is difficult.

"Biases and personal preferences" should never cloud the actual documented historical facts.
Once again using the 15 treasure wagons of Maximilian as an example-
The two treasure wagons of CSA President Jefferson Davis that made it to David Levy Yulee's Cottonwood Plantation in Archer, Florida is well documented- those who accompanied the wagons, the contents, and who buried the two chests at Yulee's, and what the Union recovered. This is what is known as outside collaborating evidence, and Franklin can also verify this information.

-there is none of this outside collaborating evidence concerning Maximilian's 15 treasure wagons, which has nothing to do with "biases and personal preferences".
Either there are supporting facts or not. It is that simple.

 

[Ditlihi]

"Biases and personal preferences" should never cloud the actual documented historical facts.
.....

Either there are supporting facts or not. It is that simple.

No, they shouldn't. But it's been shown time and again that history has been written by the victor.

And it's NOT that simple, especially when the facts themselves have been called into question. An example would be the alleged autopsy that has been historically accepted. And anything that relies on personal testimony is rife with the possibility of bias and subterfuge, yet apparently it was accepted as fact as well.