One Life Lost by Caitlin Tejeda

Caitlin Tejeda is a sophomore at William Jewell College who is majoring in English and Communication. An avid leader, she is the president of her sorority and assistant editor for the Hilltop Monitor, the College’s weekly newspaper. Caitlin also is the vice president of Sigma Tau Delta and a writing proctor in the William Jewell Writing Center, where she helps other students improve their writing and communication skills. During the summer, Caitlin will study at Georgetown University and intern at Crosby-Volmer International Communications, a P.R. firm in Washington, D.C.

One Life Lost, One Life Launched

Tuesday, February 13, 1866.

1:30 p.m. It was a typical winter day in the town of Liberty, Missouri. The clouds were gathering for a storm, and a piercing wind howled through town. Cupid’s aura hung thick, almost tangible, in the air. Everyone seemed light-hearted and friendly as they prepared to celebrate a very special Valentine’s Day—the first traditional Valentine’s Day in a long time—the kind of Valentine’s Day that lovers could spend at home with their sweethearts. Yes, Liberty residents had a lot to be thankful for these days. It had been only ten short months since the Confederates’ surrender to the Union states, and after a four-year blood bath, peacetime was a blessing in itself.

On the corner of Franklin and Water Street, Mr. William Bird had a light skip in his step as he went throughout his day. The clerk at the Clay County Savings Association, William worked alongside his father and bank cashier Mr. Greenup Bird, greeting customers as they entered the bank and waving to passersby who walked along the streets outside.

A few blocks away at William Jewell College, the young George “Jolly” Wymore slipped on his favorite broadcloth coat—the one with the blue velvet collar—that his mother had given him the year before for Christmas. He clung to a pile of papers, guarding it from the soft, damp snowflakes that danced in the wind outside. Before returning home, George was to run a small errand for his father, to make a small deposit at the Clay County Savings Association.

Unknown to George, there were several others headed toward the bank, and their intentions were not nearly as innocent as his own. Jesse James, his older brother Frank, and the rest of their gang had just purchased two bags of meal from Captain B.S. Minter, the owner of a farm, located just a few miles south of Liberty. Never looking behind them, the men emptied the meal onto the ground—on this day they had a very different need for coarse brown bags.

2 p.m. William Bird looked up from the counter as thunderous hooves disrupted his fairly-quiet afternoon. Outside, he could see ten—maybe twelve—men on horseback, all of them dressed in blue Union overcoats. William didn’t recognize the two men that dismounted their steeds and came inside. He just took their ten dollar bill and began to make change. With no other customers in the building, Greenup simultaneously made his way over to stand at William’s side.

Click! Click!

As the father and son looked up at the unexpected sound, a mixture of shock and terror filled their matching eyes. Two matte black revolvers stared back at them, no more than a few inches from their foreheads.

2:02 p.m. As George Wymore walked up the stairs to the bank’s doorway, he heard shouting from inside the building. He opened the door to see four men involved in confrontation: two men shouting in anger, the other two standing in silence. Terrified, George slammed the bank door and descended the stairs he had just climbed. He made it to the street corner before his frantic escape failed him. A fatal bullet ricocheted off his papers, pierced the collar of his coat, and sent him reeling to his knees.

Watching the young man fall, Frank James’s heart shriveled. Neither he nor any of the other gang members had intended to hurt, much less murder, Liberty townspeople. But as he had watched Jolly Wymore make a run for the corner, all Frank could think was, “Shoot the witness!” And that’s exactly what he did.

In the same moment that one life ended, another life began, for as the nineteen-year-old George Wymore fell to his death, the nineteen-year-old Jesse James successfully led the world’s first daytime robbery. That same robbery would launch Jesse’s sixteen-and-a-half year crime spree, and inspire the legend surrounding the notorious Wild West outlaw.

2:04 p.m. Smug with their accomplishments, George Shepherd and Arch Clements ran out of the bank carrying two meal bags filled with $60,000 in cash, gold, and military bonds. The two thieves quickly remounted their steeds and galloped away alongside their accomplices, leaving no tracks behind them. The snowfall, which they might have found irritating earlier this morning, was now proving to their advantage. Without footprints or horse tracks, the large, angry mob of Liberty avengers would never be able to track down the criminals, much less find any hard evidence to prove their guilt.

Aftermath. The $60,000 booty was the largest amount of currency ever to have been stolen in the state of Missouri, and it was a large enough sum to foreclose the Clay County bank after its short eight years in business. The Birds, whom the thieves mistakenly believed had been locked in the bank’s iron vault, would be able to pay each of their former customers a mere 60 cents on the dollar.

Two weeks after the robbery, the Wymore family received a letter in the mail expressing regret that Jolly had been shot. The letter was postmarked from Independence, Missouri, and was signed by the James brothers.

Works Cited

"American Experience: Jesse James." 5 Dec. 2005. Public Broadcasting Service. 10 Feb.
2009 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/james/timeline/index.html

Dye, William E. “When James Gang Robbed Neighbors: Liberty Boy Died in First
Daylight Bank Raid.” Kansas City Star [Kansas City, MO] 13 Feb. 1965.

Liberty Tribune 9 Mar. 1866: XX.

Liberty Tribune 16 Feb. 1866: XX.

Waltz, Christopher. “Bank Museum a lesson in history.” The Liberty News 15 Nov. 1995