Gregg Tucker, Daily News Journal, April 26, 2015
This Civil War-era revolver is believed to have been carried by Alexander Franklin James, legendary bandit and elder brother of Jesse James. The weapon was left with James’ kin, a Rutherford County family, in the 1870s and is now owned by local descendants.
One of entertainer Uncle Dave Macon’s seven sons wrote in 1940 that the “outlaw James brothers spent one summer hiding out near Kittrell,” a community in eastern Rutherford County.
Esten Gray “Doad” Macon was the “quiet” Macon brother — relatively intellectual, early bald and blind or nearly blind in one eye. With a bit more formal schooling than his brothers, Doad was “called” to the ministry and preached at a number of Kittrell area churches. His sunrise services in the Kittrell Cemetery were always well-attended.
Macon substituted as a school teacher all over the county. He served for a time as the principal at Kittrell. Married late, he had no children. (See Tucker, “Rutherford Ramblings,” (RCHS 2014), pages 137-40.) This Macon son was also a journalist, writing periodically for the Rutherford Courier , a twice-a-week newspaper owned and published by Minor Bragg.
On Friday, March 28, 1941, a Macon report appeared on page one of the newspaper: “The famous outlaws, Frank and Jesse James, otherwise known as the bad men from Missouri, spent many a day as guests in the humble cabin of the late Uncle Fate Jennings, the old horse swapper, and his wife in the Sugar Camp Hollow community a few miles north of Kittrell, during the years 1870-80 when the county sheriffs were searching the country for the outlaws.”
According to Macon, Jennings told his story in an interview before his death. “It was about 9 o’clock one morning when two heavy built men rode up to my front gate and hitched their horses. I noticed that they were careful not to make any racket,” remembered Jennings. “The two fellows came on up to the front porch and knocked.”
The old black farmer explained that when he opened the door, the two fellows asked for food. He declined saying that he couldn’t afford to be feeding strangers. “But when they told me they were the James boys, Frank and Jesse, I changed my mind at once.
“I hollered back in the house and told Tina, my wife, to heat some water, and I dashed out in the yard and picked up two of the best fryers that I could find,” recalled Jennings. Through the rest of that summer, the James brothers stayed in a cabin somewhere between Halls Hill and Milton, making regular visits to the Jennings farm for dinner, according to the Macon report.
Jennings, who would have been in his late 20s when the brothers were in Middle Tennessee, described Frank as “heavybuilt with broad shoulders, a high forehead and black hair…he was peaceful and liked to sit around and chat.” Jesse was “a slender younger man with keen eyes and black hair… always kept his eyes and ears open for trouble.” It was recalled that the James brothers would sometimes sing hymns in payment for their meals.
Nashville area residents
Locals who knew Doad Macon, the educator and preacher, are confident that he accurately reported what he heard from the elderly couple. The reliability of the Jennings’ story is less certain. Could some strangers have used the infamous names for their own advantage? Was the “old horse swapper” merely spinning a tale to entertain his descendants and a curious reporter?
Actually, stories of the James gang in Middle Tennessee have been heard and repeated in Rutherford County for generations. Biographers have established that the James brothers lived in the Nashville area, under assumed identities, in the years between 1876 and 1882.
Several addresses in Edgefield, a community in what is now East Nashville, have been identified as houses where the James families lived, but the brothers themselves were not always in residence.
In or about 1880, one of the gang members who had been at odds with Jesse made a hasty disappearance leaving behind personal belongings. Concerned that their former colleague, fearing for his own safety, may have gone to the authorities, the brothers decided to get out of Nashville for awhile.
Leaving their wives and children in Nashville, Frank and Jesse headed south. Biographers have not confirmed the duration of their absence or their location during that period.
One account has the brothers going as far south as New Orleans, but it is possible that they simply disappeared into the woods east of Murfreesboro for a couple of months. This possibility is at least consistent with a desire to remain close to their families.
Another occasion when the brothers disappeared was in or about June 1881. State and federal authorities were then investigating a federal payroll theft in Alabama and the James brothers were believed to have been responsible. Some of the gang had been tracked to Adairville, Kentucky. As enforcement closed in on the Kentucky hideout, the James brothers again headed south.
“What happened to the James brothers for a month or so after leaving Kentucky is still a matter of some question and contention,” according to one biographer. (See Ted B. Yeatman, “Frank and Jesse James; The Story Behind the Legend,” (Cumberland House 2000), page 229.) Again, the remote hills and woods in eastern Rutherford County could have afforded refuge for the legendary brothers during this period.
Genealogists, including Fay Gannon, daughter of the late Rutherford County Commissioner Homer Gannon (1917-93), have confirmed that Anna Ralston, wife of Frank James, was related to the Mims, Jarratt, Ralston, Woodson and Gannon families of Rutherford County.
According to Ralston family lore, Anna and her husband (then under alias as Ben Woodson) visited cousin William Ralston at his home on Swamp Road near Eagleville in the late 1870s.
William fed their horses, served food to Anna and “Ben” and gave the couple a few dollars. Before leaving, “Ben” gave William a pistol and asked the cousin to keep it hidden until he and Anna returned. The revolver was never reclaimed. It remains in the possession of Ralston family descendants.
In 1882 Jesse was shot and killed by Bob Ford, a James gang member collaborating with Missouri authorities. Frank surrendered but was never convicted. He was eventually released, and became a cult celebrity, toured with several “wild West” shows and died peacefully in 1915.
A special thanks for research assistance to Fay Gannon, Ph.D.