James, Jesse

Cultural  

1. An outlaw of the nineteenth century. Jesse, his brother Frank, and their gang committed many daring robberies of banks and trains, especially in the 1870s. After a reward had been offered for James's capture, one of his own gang shot him in the back and collected the money.

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Jesse James is the subject of many folk legends and songs.

Example Sentences

Harvey’s entertaining history of James Jesse Strang, a 19th-century con man who led a breakaway Mormon colony on an island in Lake Michigan, chronicles a manic, anxious, gullible time, not unlike our own.

From New York Times • Jul. 30, 2020

Probably not, at least judging by “The King of Confidence,” Miles Harvey’s jaunty, far-ranging history of the 19th-century con man and prophet James Jesse Strang.

From New York Times • Jul. 14, 2020

In the year 1843 there came from New York to the village of Burlington, Racine county, an eccentric young lawyer named James Jesse Strang.

From Stories of the Badger State by Thwaites, Reuben Gold

James Jesse Strang was born and educated in New York State, graduated from the Fredonia Academy of the same state.

From A Child of the Sea; and Life Among the Mormons by Williams, Elizabeth Whitney