"False Jessie James once visited Cameron" by Jeanne Williams.Temple Daily Telegram:

False Jesse James once visited Cameron

BY JEANNE WILLIAMS - Temple Daily Telegram

July 18, 2011

CAMERON - An elderly man who at times claimed to be outlaw Jesse James hiding in Texas

under an alias visited Cameron in 1943 posing as Frank Dalton, 96, lecturer, writer and

blood kin to members of the notorious Dalton Gang.

Interviewed by The Cameron Herald publisher for a sensational front-page spread titled

“Fought Under Black Flag of Quantrill; Is Visiting Cameron,” Dalton only talked about

his knowledge of Frank and Jesse James, the Youngers and the Dalton gang, as well as

his own family tree and personal adventures as a veteran of three wars and his life on

the outlaw trail.

The author described Dalton as a Buffalo Bill look-alike, who knew more about the

Missouri-Kansas border wars than any living person, because he was there.

“He travels much, lectures, writes stories of the old days, and spins yarns that smack

of danger along the Kaw (river in northeastern Kansas) where the Youngers and James

boys hung up a record never equaled during the days of Quantrill,” the article stated.

Dalton admitted to the author his outlaw past where he “had the chance to surrender to

be tried for many crimes, falsely charged against the men, but elected to remain free

and hit out for Texas,” the story stated. Dalton was scheduled to deliver a lecture on

the public square in Cameron on Saturday, Oct. 30, 1943.

Various sources target J. Frank Dalton as the perpetrator of two great frauds: one that

he traveled from town to town claiming to be the outlaw Jesse James; the other that

claimed to be Frank Dalton — a deputy U.S. marshal who in reality died in 1887 in a

shootout with a horse thief and was buried in Coffeyville, Kan.

On his visit to Cameron, however, the man who called himself Frank Dalton did not

impersonate Dalton, the lawman, nor did he try to pass himself off as Jesse James the

famed outlaw.

The news writer, who presented himself as a well-read authority on the topic of Kansas

and Missouri border wars and Quantrill’s’ Raiders, found Dalton an intriguing subject

for a story.

“Frank Dalton” recounted the familiar story of how in 1882, Jesse James was shot by

Bob Ford in Missouri and said he “identified the body of Jesse James.” After Jesse’s

demise, brother Frank James lived in Dallas and upon his death was cremated in St.

Louis, Mo., Dalton told the newspaperman.

Outlaws in the Dalton Gang, some of whom died during an attempted bank robbery in

Coffeeville, Kan., were his nephews, Dalton told the interviewer.

Dalton said he was born in Goliad in 1848, and was “just two days older than Texas as a

state in the Union.”

At age 13, Dalton was hanged by Union soldiers after trying to defend his sisters. Left

for dead, he was rescued when his mother ran into the barn with a knife and freed him

from the rope. Dalton ran away from home and joined Quantrill’s Raiders at Blackwater,

Mo., the same day Jesse James joined the guerillas.

Dalton claimed to have the only photograph of Quantrill in existence. In Dalton’s

words, Quantrill did not die as recorded in books, but escaped to Texas, where he

became a school teacher under an alias. Though Dalton knew Quantrill’s whereabouts, he

refused to disclose the information because of living relatives, the story stated.

J. Frank Dalton was a controversial figure near the end of his life, where various

Jesse James scholars discounted his claims as unbelievable.

He died in Granbury on Aug. 15, 1951, at age 103, but those who believed his Jesse

James stories posthumously refused to let the legend pass away.

In 2000, a car dealer obtained a court order to have Dalton’s remains exhumed and

tested for a DNA match. After the wrong grave was opened, the project was abandoned and

J. Frank Dalton, whoever he may be, hopefully rests in peace.

jwilliams@tdtnews.com

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Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram