J. Frank Dalton
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J. Frank Dalton (born March 8, 1848, died 16 August 1951 in Granbury, Texas) was a man who claimed to be the famous outlaw Jesse James and allegedly resembled him "to a degree." He had previously claimed to have been Deputy US Marshal Frank Dalton, the older brother of the Dalton Gang.
[edit] Myths and Rumors
Though history states that James was assassinated by brothers and fellow gang members Bob and Charley Ford on April 3, 1882, that was not the last the American people would hear of him. Rumors have persisted that it was not James whom the Fords had shot, but rather another man (some say one Charles Bigelow, claimed by them to have been living with James' wife at the time).
[edit] Dalton's tale
J. Frank Dalton stated in his application for a Confederate veteran's pension that he had been born in Goliad, Texas and had served as a Confederate irregular with William C. Quantrill. But he also liked to claim that he was the famous US Marshall Frank Dalton, who had been killed in a gunfight with many witnesses in 1887. Dalton would later change his story and claim he was the noted outlaw Jesse James.
Beginning in 1949, J. Frank Dalton's story was promoted and encouraged by the proprietors of Meramec Caverns ("Jesse James' Hideout") near Stanton, Missouri. Henry J. Walker later wrote a book supporting Dalton's claims, calling it Jesse James the Outlaw (1961).
No historian has ever taken Dalton's claims seriously, and his knowledge of details the real Jesse would have been aware of was notably lacking. Dalton's claim is often connected to a tale of hidden gold and a plot to revive the Confederacy in the years after the Civil War. Homer Croy, who knew the James family and had interviewed members of Jesse's gang, ridiculed Dalton in his book Jesse James Was My Neighbor. Croy wrote that he once asked Jesse James Jr. if any of his alleged fathers had ever returned to visit them. Jesse Jr., who sometimes played a cowboy in silent films, smiled and replied, "Not a one".
In an attempt to put an end to the dispute, the body buried in Missouri as Jesse James was exhumed in 1995 and the subsequent DNA analysis resulted in a 99.7% probability that the remains were indeed those of the famed outlaw. Still unwilling to accept this, Dalton's proponents got a court order in 2000 to exhume and test Dalton's body to solve the mystery "once and for all." Unfortunately, the wrong body was exhumed, and Dalton's remains have yet to be tested.
