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 infamous 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 from which the fireplace still bears the burn marks.
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 were allowed to scoop up the “authentic” pebbles from the grave. Unbeknownst to them, Zerelda had replenished them from the stream where the boys used to play and had probably only been sitting there since that morning.
Read more about this topic: Zerelda James
Famous quotes containing the words post, james, farm and/or tour:
“A demanding stranger arrived one morning in a small town and asked a boy on the sidewalk of the main street, “Boy, where’s the post office?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, then, where might the drugstore be?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about a good cheap hotel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Say, boy, you don’t know much, do you?”
“No, sir, I sure don’t. But I ain’t lost.””
—William Harmon (b. 1938)
“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“On the farm I had learned how to meet realities without suffering either mentally or physically. My initiative had never been blunted. I had freedom to succeed—freedom to fail. Life on the farm produces a kind of toughness.”
—Bertha Van Hoosen (1863–1952)
“Left Washington, September 6, on a tour through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.... Absent nineteen days. Received every where heartily. The country is again one and united! I am very happy to be able to feel that the course taken has turned out so well.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)