Billy Meets Jesse James?

texas_outlaw · Veteran Member

Billy Meets Jesse James?

Kiwi Steve · Member

Could well have happened but unfortunatley will be one of those frustrating Billy The Kid mysteries that will probably never be solved.

PatF · Member

Tex,
Was that book you mentioned Frontier Doctor, by Henry Hoyt? If not, I'll try to find the time to post some quotes from the book about Dr. Hoyt's story concerning accidentally meeting up with Billy when he was allegedly in the company of Jesse James.
I also have an old magazine, maybe Old West or True West, that expounds on the subject. I could pull that out, too, and try to summarize the article.
Pat

JayPo · Member

I did read somewhere that the 2 did meet while at a hotel, and that records confirm that there was a Mr. Howard staying there when the meeting supposedly took place. We all know that Jesse used the alias "Mr. Howard", and the meeting was supposedly for Jesse to ask Billy to join him. However, Billy declined.

PatF · Member

The following is taken directly from Henry Hoyt's book, Frontier Doctor:

There was a famous Hot Springs six miles from Las Vegas, equipped with an old-time adobe line of bathhouses and a hotel. Scott Mooore and his good wife were proprietors. Their cuisine was noted all through New Meico and as they always had an extra fine dinner Sundays, there was, as a rule, a big crowd on that day.

I rode out one Sunday and found at a coner table the only vacant seat in the room. Glancing at the three guests alredy there, I was simply amazed to recognize the on on my left as Billy the Kid, urbane and smiling as ever. We shook hands, but neither mentioned a name.

We were chatting away of old times in Texas as if we were a couple of cowboy friends, when the man on Bonney's left made a comment on something he said. Whereupon Billy said, 'Hoyt, meet my friend Mr. Howard from Tennessee.'

The fourth man had nearly finished his meal when I sat down, and soon retired. Mr. Howard had noticeable characteristics. He had piercing steely blue eyes with a peculiar blink and the tip of a finger on his left hand was missing. I mentally classed him as a railroad man. He proved to be most, was a good talker, had evidently traveled quite a bit, and the meal passed pleasantly. After dinner we separated and Billy, taking me to his room, gave me, after pledging me to secrecy, one of the surprses of my life. Mr. Howard was no other than the bandit and train robbber, Jesse James. I was skeptical, but Billy soon convinced me it was true. Jesse James had been in seculsion ofr some time; Mr and Mrs. Moore were former friends whom he could trust, so he came out to size up the situation in a new territory. Billy alo knew the Moores, and as he had not seen a passenger train since he was a youngster, he had slipped into Las Vegas, discarded his cowboy togs for an entire new city outift of clothing, and was having thetime of his life for a few days at the Hot Springs. He made his purchases at eht store of Charley Ifelt, who also know him and who still remembers the incident. Mr. Iftle spent the winter of 1928-29 at the Hotel Viginina, Long Beach, California, and verified my recollection in regard to several incidenta of the old days.
The Moores, finding themselvs hosts of two of the most conspicuous outlaws of the West has ever known, brought them together, and the apparantly became friends.

Jesse James was prospecting and preparing to make a move, and after meeting Billy and sizing him up, made him a tentative proposition that they join forces and hit the trail together. Although both were outlaws with standing rewards out for their capture, their lives and activities were entirely different. Billy was never a train or bank robber nor a hold-up man in any sense of the word. His only peculations had been rouuding up cattle and horses carrying some one else's brand, a diverson more or less popular amoung many old-time cattlemen, and at that period not considred a crime--if one could get away with it. It was very much the same as bootlegging today.

His offenses, for which he was now an outcast, were entirerly traceable to the now historic Lincoln County War. General Lew Wallace knew this or hs certainly would never have made Billy the offer that will appear later.

On account of the diference in their statue, and of the fact that a union with Jesse James would carry him away from the magnet at Fort Somner, Billy turned down his proposal.

(to be continued after my fingers cool down.)

PatF · Member

Frontier Doctor excerpt continued:

We all met again that evening and had quite a visit, 'Mr. Howard' little dreaming I knew his identity. Billy had said I was a doctor who had befriended him in the Panhandle. In discussing different parts of the country I could not resist the temptation to ask Mr. Howard if he had ever been at my old home, St. Paul, Minnesota. He replied in the negative, in the most nonchalant manner, and changed the subject. It was no doubt lucky for me that he was not a mind-reader. He evidently did not know of the recent publicity that had been given his former pal, Charley Pitts, and myself. It was a case of 'where ignorance is bliss, 'twere folly to be wise.'

When I was alone with Billy, he gave me a brief account of his adventures after I left Tascosa. He had soon disposed of the few horses he had left, and with two of his party had returned to Lincoln County, by way of Bosque Redondo, of course, and found the war still on. If my memory is correct, Henry Brown and Fred Waite left him at Tascosa a traveled east. While at the Bosque, Billy had his picture taken and afterward made his Lolita a present of the watch and chain I had given hyim. He talso told me that he had greatly improved his skill with a gun.

In Tascosa the rear of the store was a veritble graveyard of empty quart beer-bottles, and one of the outstanding sports of the cowboys was to set up six in an row and at a range of fifty yards shoot for the drinks, or whatever they might fancy, with their 45s. He Billy was champian. He could pull h is gun and demolish the six bottles in just one half the time of any one else. He and I exchanged weapons to see if there was any special magic in his, but it made no differnece. He was also a marvelous shot with a Winchester.

In the picture of Billy the Kid can be seen the handle of his 45 with which he had shot into fame--of a certian kind. The entire gun is shown in another picture with the profile of its present owner, that celebrated delineator of the old two0gun man of the Wild west, William S. Hart, of Newhall, California

Okay, I guess the end of that chapter veered off of Jesse, but I transcribed from the Jesse story ot the end of Chapter Fifteen.

texas_outlaw · Veteran Member

That was the book! I checked it out at a library recently.

jessejames · Newbie

Yep! I read the same interesting (Hoyt) book. But if you read certain books on Jesse James life - there are some that state that they never met. The story was just a rumor or that the person was a Jesse James or Billy the Kid look-alike. I, myself, find it hard picturing Billy the Kid as a bank, train or stagecoach robber. He wasn't cold blooded enough.

Donna · Member

I attended a talk by Jesse James author John Koblas a few weeks back in Sunrise, Minn. Being a Billy the Kid fan I just had to ask about this supposed meeting between Jesse and Billy. In John's opinion, the meeting most likely did not happen, but he acknowledged that it's one of those things that people want to believe happened so the debate will go on. Mr. Koblas has written three books on Jesse James and I have recently finished The Jesse James Northfield Raid Confessions of the Ninth Man.

Webmaster · Senior Member

In Fred Nolan's book The West of Billy the Kid, a footnote reads: "On December 6, 1879, the Las Vegas Optic noted 'Jesse James was a guest at Las Vegas Hot Springs July 26th to 29th. Of course it is not generally known.' " Nolan continues "There is no way of confirming whether or not Hoyt (and Miguel Otero who also reported it) saw the newspaper item at the time and later remembered it happening."

Now I haven't made up my mind what to believe, but from what it shows both Jesse James and Billy the Kid were in Las Vegas at the same time and could've very well met up with each other. I don't see why Billy the Kid or Henry Hoyt would lie about it. Hoyt seemed to be pretty reliable in other aspects. Anyways, not too many historians are quick to dismiss this story. Are Jesse James experts able to prove that Jesse was else where at the time or would they rather not have their outlaw associate himself with Billy the Kid? I guess it’s another mystery that surrounds Billy the Kid that we have to wonder about.

Mrconn · Newbie

What a meeting. Jesse James meets Billy The Kid. It is like when Elvis Presley met The Beatles in 1965. No cameras or tape recordings but only a lot of accounts to what went on. It will always be a mystery.