Barritt Family Photo of "Jesse James"?
In addition to a photo of Travis Barron that was wrongly identified as a photo of Jesse James living under the assumed name of James L Courtney in TX, (Travis' bro-in-law) there is another photo's identification as Jesse James living as James L Courtney that raises several red flags.
This photo said to be Jesse James (taken sometime after his death in 1882), is said to match other photos of James L Courtney.
It was taken in JC Consaul's photo gallery in Barton Co MO, per the back of the photo. On the front of the photo, someone has written "Jesse James, Not Dead."
The original photo belongs to John B Barritt Jr of OK City, and he states he received it from his uncle's widow's daughter, no relation to him. He had read in the Dallas paper that a book had been written about Jesse James living in TX after 1882, and provided a copy of his original photo to the author. The author states that a tintype of her grgrandfather, James L Courtney, taken after his arrival in TX in 1871, has been determined by facial identification experts to be the same face pictured in the "Jessie James “not dead” photo".
http://www.jessejamesintexas.com/New_Whitsett_Evidence.pdfhttp://www.jessejamesintexas.com/New_Whitsett_Evidence.pdf
After reading several complaints that photos were being mis-identified in a couple of books written about James L Courtney living in TX as Jesse James, out of curiosity, I checked to see if there was a man named Jesse James living where the photo gallery was, to see if it was possible HE was the man in the photo with the note "Jesse James Not Dead"
Sure enough, there was Jesse James, living in the same town as the photo gallery!
He appears on the 1900 census for Barton Co MO, age 20, born 1879, living in the home of William Kinzie.
He appears on the 1920 Barton CO MO census, married, with 6 children ages 1-15. Another researcher tells me he appears on the 1910 Crawford Co KS census with wife and 2 children, that match the wife and first 2 children on the 1920 census.
It appears that man in the photo "Jesse James, Not Dead" needs more research, to prove if he is indeed the Jesse James born 1879, who was 3 yrs old when Jesse James was killed, and not James L Courtney.
From Genforum message:
http://genforum.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?barritt::courtney::623.htmlhttp://genforum.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?barritt::courtney::623.html
"Betty says, “ Mr. John B. Barritt did try to have his photo authenticated (before he knew me) by none other than Bob Jackson (Susan James’ great-grandson, the same Bob Jackson who was to donate a hair sample for my DNA testing and who did donate blood for the ’95 exhumation). Bob Jackson apparently did not respond.”
Does any Barrit family member know of a James family connection?
John B Barritt's grgrandfather was Henry Clay Barritt from OH-MO-OK, and he had an uncle named Clifford.
Fran