Zerelda James
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Zerelda Elizabeth James Samuel (previously Zerelda Cole James and Zerelda Simms) (January 29, 1825 – February 10, 1911) was the mother of outlaws Frank James and Jesse James.
Born Zerelda Elizabeth Cole in Woodford County, Kentucky her parents were James Cole and Sarah "Sallie" Cole (nee Lindsay) she had one younger brother, Jesse Richard Cole, he was a year younger than her and committed suicide in 1895.
When Zerelda was a small child James Cole broke his neck in a riding accident leaving her mother with two small children, they where taken in by her paternal Grandfather who owned a saloon. Later her mother re-married to a farmer named Thompson, Zerelda by all accounts did not get on with her new stepfather so she went to live with some of her mothers relatives in Kentucky where she attended a Catholic Girls school.
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[edit] First marriage
Zerelda married Robert Sallee James on December 28, 1841, at the home of her uncle James Madison Lindsay in Stamping Ground, Kentucky. A college friend of Robert's officiated as the best man and tobacco was given in bond. The two moved to the vicinity of Centerville (later Kearney) in Clay County, Missouri. Robert James was a commercial hemp farmer, a slave owner, and a popular evangelical minister in the Baptist Church. Zerelda bore him four children.
- Alexander Franklin James (born January 10, 1843)
- Robert B. James (July 19 – August 21, 1845)
- Jesse Woodson James (born September 5, 1847)
- Susan Lavenia James (born November 25, 1849)
Shortly after the birth of his daughter Robert moved to California to preach to the gold miners, where he contracted either pneumonia, cholera or typhoid, and died on (according to tradition) August 18, 1850. His grave has never been officially identified and no marker exists for him today. There is a much disputed story that in later years Jesse went looking for the grave of his father.
[edit] Second marriage
Benjamin Simms (c.1830–January 2, 1854) was a wealthy farmer who married widow Zerelda James on September 30, 1852. The marriage proved to be an unhappy one, largely because of Simms's dislike of her two boys Frank and Jesse James to whom he was reportedly cruel. Zerelda left Simms, but a divorce proved unnecessary when he died on January 2, 1854 when his horse threw him.
[edit] Third marriage
Zerelda married a third time, to Dr. Reuben Samuel (January 1829 – March 1, 1908), on September 25, 1855. Samuel, has been described as "a quiet, passive man, was widely described as standing in the shadow of his outspoken, forceful wife". Zerelda and Reuben had four children.
- Sarah Ellen Samuel (born April 7, 1842) (married John Harmon)
- John Thomas Samuel (born December 25, 1861)
- Fanny Quantrell [sic] Samuel (born October 18, 1863)
- Archie Peyton Samuel (born July 26, 1866)
Reuben may have also fathered Perry Samuel (c. 1866-1936) who Zerelda considered family. Some stories give John Samuel as the father but as he would only have been five at the time this can be dismissed.
There has been some dispute as to the spelling of the surname "Samuel", as it appears to be spelt without the usual S at the end. However, the surname does appear to be spelt "Samuel" as attested to by birth records and family gravestones and neighbour Homer Croy.
[edit] Personality
Those who knew Zerelda Samuel, as she was now known, frequently commented on the force of her personality. Artist and state official George Caleb Bingham wrote in 1875, "She has had the advantages of an early education, and seems to be endowed with a vigorous intellect and masculine will." Stella James, Zerelda's grandson's wife, later declared, "Zerelda had always given orders, but she had never taken any.... The mother of Frank and Jesse James was strong-willed and had plenty of determination." E.M. Samuel, a merchant from nearby Liberty, Missouri, thought her marriage to Reuben Samuel was an unequal one, though he wrote during the Civil War, when he was on the opposite side of the conflict from Zerelda: "He is an easy, good natured, good for nothing fellow," he said of Reuben, "who is completely under the control of his wife."
E.M. Samuel was a prominent Unionist, whereas Zerelda was an outspoken Confederate. Both of her sons fought as Confederate bushwhackers, leading to severe retaliation from the Union authorities. The farm was often raided by Union militiamen; Reuben Samuel was tortured for information , (it is thought that the resulting injuries to his brain might have been the cause of his dementia); and the family was banished from Missouri in January 1865, though they returned to the farm before the end of that year. The Union provost marshal who recommended the banishment singled Zerelda out as a Confederate supporter, declaring her "one of the worst women in this state."
During the years when Frank and Jesse James gained fame as outlaws, she often gave interviews to the press, uttering veiled threats to witnesses against her boys, and insisting on Frank and Jesse's innocence. Around midnight on the night of January 25, 1875, Agents of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency raided the Samuel farm. An incendiary device was thrown through the window; Reuben rolled it into the fireplace, where it superheated and exploded. A fragment struck Archie Samuel, killing him, and another piece tore through Zerelda's arm, forcing amputation the next day.
[edit] Post Jesse: The James Farm Tour
With all the press circulating of the famous James brothers of Missouri, the hysteria of the Frank James trial and all the dime novels of which the family did not approve, it was inevitable that people would turn up at the farm wanting to see the place where the famous Jesse James had grown up.
Zerelda charged a dollar for the tour, and the visitors were taken on a tour of the farmhouse including a vivid account of the Pinkerton Raid in January which the fireplace still bears the burn marks from.
The tour culminated at the grave of Jesse, who was originally buried in the front yard under Zerelda’s watchful eye. Zerelda was tormented by the thought that someone would come and take him so she had him buried an extra few feet down than the standard six, for an extra few coins visitors where allowed to scoop up the “authentic” pebbles from the grave. Unbeknownst to them, Zerelda had replenished from the stream where the boys used to play and had probably only been sitting there since that morning.
[edit] Death
Zerelda died in 1911 in the Burlington carriage on a train traveling to San Francisco, California, when 20 miles outside of Oklahoma City of a heart aliment which had been affecting her for some time. She was 86 years old and was buried next to Rueben.
[edit] Timeline
- 1825 Birth on January 29
- 1850 Death of Robert Sallee James, her first husband
- 1854 Death of Benjamin Simms, her second husband
- 1900 US Census in Washington, Missouri
- 1908 Death of Reuben Samuel, her third husband
- 1911 Death in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on February 10th
[edit] References
- Settle, William A., Jr.: Jesse James Was His Name, or, Fact and Fiction Concerning the Careers of the Notorious James Brothers of Missouri, University of Nebraska Press, 1977
- Yeatman, Ted P.: Frank and Jesse James: The Story Behind the Legend, Cumberland House, 2001
- Stiles, T.J.: Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, Alfred A. Knopf, 2002
- Obituary from the Washington Post; February 11, 1911
- Jesse and Frank James: The Family History by Phillip Steele
[edit] Popular Culture
- Mamaw by Susan M. Dodd, a fictional book about Zerelda.
- Fran Ryanplayed Zerelda in the 1980 film The Long Riderswhich was a more or less accurate film about the last years of the James-Younger gang after the Civil War
- Jane Darwell played Zerelda in the 1939 Tyrone Power movie. Jane's last role was the bird-woman in Mary Poppins.
