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  • ROBERT FORD
    Born
    January 31, 1862
    Ray County, Missouri, U.S.


    Died
    June 8, 1892 (aged 30)
    Creede, Colorado


    Cause of death
    Murdered by Edward Capehart O'Kelley


    Resting place
    Richmond Cemetery in Richmond, Missouri


    Occupation
    Outlaw; Saloon owner


    Known for
    The assassination of Jesse James


    Parents
    James Thomas and Mary Bruin Ford


    For full biography, please see:-
    Robert Ford- Wikipedia


    Mini-Biography=1
    Robert Newton "Bob" Ford (January 31, 1862 – June 8, 1892) was an American outlaw
    best known for killing his gang leader Jesse James in April 1882, to collect a reward.
    For about a year, Ford and his older brother Charles performed paid re-enactments of the killing
    at publicity events.
    Later he drifted around the West, operating saloons and dance halls.


    Ford was shot to death at the age of 30 in Creede, Colorado, by Edward Capehart O'Kelley,
    who attacked him in Ford's temporary tent saloon.
    Ford was first buried in Creede.
    His remains were later moved and reinterred at Richmond Cemetery in Richmond in Ray County, Missouri;
    "The man who shot Jesse James" was inscribed on his grave marker.



    Jesse James is a legend in the history of the American West, and his killer, Robert Ford,
    who shot James in the back, is nearly as notorious.
    His name became synonymous with cowardice, even to the point on inspiring the title of a Brad Pitt film,
    The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.


    Mini-Biography=2
    Born in the warzone of Civil War-era Missouri in 1862,
    Ford grew up a poor admirer of Jesse James's Confederate vigilantism and outlaw pursuits.
    By the early 1880s, while the nation was still healing, James was the most wanted criminal in Missouri,
    if not the entire United States.
    But he had already fostered a post-war following among Confederates who resented Reconstruction changes
    to their antebellum lives.
    This sense of Robin Hood-type chivalry was quickly amplified by dime novels who put
    James on the side of poor Confederates who battled money-hungry Northern carpetbaggers and bankers.



    Ford joined the gang in early 1882. By this time most of James's trusted cohorts had fled, assumed new identities, or been jailed or killed. Even Jesse's brother, Frank, had retired to Virginia. Jess James settled his family in St. Joseph County, Missouri, and went by the name Thomas Howard. The Ford brothers, including Robert's brother Charles, posed as his cousins.


    While Charles Ford had participated in James Gang raids, Robert was still new and untested. Jesse James planned one last raid on a bank in Blue Cut, Missouri, even as the Ford brothers met with newly-elected Governor Crittenden. Crittenden had made the capture or death of Jesse James a prominent part of his inaugural promises. He also made promises to the Fords: $5,000 each and exemption from prosecution if they killed Jesse James.


    Keep in mind that no matter how Robert Ford went about killing the notorious outlaw, Jesse James had, by the end of his life, participated in anti-Union massacres, robbed dozens of banks, and terrorized citizens throughout the Midwest. James was not a great guy.



    But the fact he was shot in the back in his own home became the stuff of legend. Storytellers used Ford's supposed act of cowardice to magnify James's Robin Hood-style legend. Countless depictions of unaware, "innocent" James straightening a picture on his wall, with Robert Ford looming at his back, graced newspapers and magazines across the country. Especially because James's pro-Confederate image hearkened back to the mythologized Old South--where gentlemen dueled face to face--his murder seemed especially tragic to those who mourned an extinct way of life.


    Rather than the hero's status Ford assumed he would receive, he was ostracized. Political forces in Missouri were split along many post-war factions, and few agreed that Crittenden's scheme had merit. The Ford brothers were convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to hang, only to be pardoned within hours by the governor. They were paid but a portion of the bounty promised; the railroads that had posted the reward had no incentive to pay up once their villain was dead.


    Following the killing, Ford lived a tumultuous life.
    His brother, a tubercular morphine addict, died in 1884.
    Robert Ford drifted from job to job, opened a salon, survived would-be knife assassin,
    and wound up at a mine in Colorado.
    There, a petty outlaw named Edward O'Kelley, convinced he would be revered as a hero for killing
    the ultimate coward, shot Ford point-blank in the chest with a shotgun.
    Ford was only thirty years old, his place of cowardice in the violent history of the American West secured.
    By Carrie Lofty

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited 4 times, last by ethanedwards ().

  • Every time I hear Bob Ford's name, that part of the Jesse James folk song goes through my mind...


    Well Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life,
    Three children, now they were brave,
    But that dirty little coward that shot Mister Howard,
    Has laid poor Jesse in his grave.


    Jesse's life and criminal career have been romanticized over the years, but as stated, he was a bad man and he was a killer. You reap what you sow.


    Mark

    "I couldn't go to sleep at night if the director didn't call 'cut'. "