On this day in history, when the James-Younger Gang rode into Northfield, Minnesota, intending to rob the First National Bank, they did not expect any trouble from the local citizens. Unbeknownst to them, the townspeople would soon be nationally applauded for defending their town from some of the period’s most notorious outlaws.
Image: Jesse and Frank James, 1872. (Wikimedia Commons.)
The James-Younger Gang was from Missouri. After a decade of local robberies, they decided to go where no one would expect to find them. The Younger brothers – Cole, Jim, and Bob – traveled to Minnesota, as did McClelland “Clell” Miller and Charlie Pitts. Though never proven, it is generally accepted that Jesse and Frank James took part in the crime that followed. The eighth man is thought to have been Bill Chadwell, whom authorities initially mistook for a Minnesotan man named Bill Stiles.
The gang rode into Northfield a 2 p.m. on September 7. Frank, Charlie, and Bob entered the First National Bank while Cole and Clell positioned themselves outside the bank door to bar townspeople from entering during the robbery. Meanwhile, Jesse, Jim, and Bill waited in Mill Square to guard the gang’s escape route.
J.S. Allen, a forty-year-old local man, noticed the strangers. He walked towards the bank to see if he could catch a glimpse of what they were up to inside. As soon as he reached the doorway, Clell grabbed Allen, pointed his revolver at him, and told him to stay quiet. Alarmed, Allen broke free and shouted, “Get your guns, boys! They’re robbing the bank.”
Their cover blown, the gang rode up and down the streets, firing their pistols at doorways and warning confused onlookers to get inside. Henry Wheeler, a medical student, grabbed a gun and ran to a third-floor window of the nearby Dampier Hotel. From there, he took careful aim and shot Clell Miller, who fell from his horse and died. On the other side of the street, Anselm Manning, the hardware store’s owner, crept around the corner and fatally shot Bill Chadwell.
Nicholaus Gustavson, a recent Swedish immigrant who could not understand the robbers’ orders to get off the street, got caught in the crossfire and was shot in the head. He died several days later.
With two gang members dead and more townspeople shooting and throwing rocks, Cole screamed at the robbers in the bank to hurry up. Inside the bank, however, things were going just as poorly as outside.
The robbers had burst into the bank with their pistols drawn and demanded to know which of the three employees was the cashier. The cashier was out of town, so none of them answered. Frustrated, Frank grabbed Joseph Heywood, the bookkeeper, and demanded that he open the safe. Heywood replied that the lock was on a timer and could not be opened. He lied; the lock was open during business hours, but the bolts remained in place so that they appeared locked.
Frank fired a shot above Heywood’s head, trying to scare him into cooperating. Noticing an opportunity to flee amid the confusion, Alonzo Bunker, the bank teller, sprinted for the back door. Charlie Pitts shot him in the shoulder, but Bunker kept running until he reached the doctor’s office.
Hearing Cole’s desperate shouts from the street, Bob and Charlie grabbed the spare change they found on the counter and headed outside. Infuriated by their failure, Frank paused long enough to turn back and shoot Heywood in the head, instantly killing him.
The citizens of Northfield ran to surround the bank and mercilessly shot down the robbers as they tried to escape. Along with the death of two gang members, Jesse’s brother, Frank, was hit in the leg, while their criminal partners – Jim, Cole, and Bob Younger – were also severely wounded.
Just minutes after riding into Northfield, the surviving outlaws retreated from the town. They left behind two dead gang members and fifteen thousand dollars in the bank. Hundreds of volunteers combed southern Minnesota for two weeks, searching for them in what was then the largest manhunt in American history.
The gang’s troubles continued as they were pressured throughout Minnesota by citizens who joined their local sheriffs to hunt them down. The normally hard-riding gang traveled across the state, slowed to a snail’s pace by their wounds. Frank and Jesse, who were less wounded, abandoned their compatriots and cut out alone to save their skin.
On September 21, the remnants of the gang were spotted by 16-year-old (Asel Sorbel, a farm boy who jumped on his plow horse and rode 13 miles to report the sighting to Sheriff James Glispin. The sheriff mobilized a posse, which located what was left of the gang outside Madelia near Hanska’s Slough. When the gang spotted the posse, they took cover in a thicket within the slough.
The Civil War veterans in the posse reverted to a tactic they had used often in the war. Several volunteers joined Sheriff Glispin in a skirmish line, which advanced on foot toward the thicket. Suddenly the gang opened fire, wounding the sheriff. Instantly the entire posse poured a withering fire into the bushes. After a short time, Bob Younger pleaded for the posse to cease fire after every gang member was shot down. All were wounded except for Charlie Pitts, who died in that slough. Bob, Cole, and Jim Younger would survive to spend the next twenty years incarcerated at Stillwater State Penitentiary.
Image: Taken in the aftermath of the raid on the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota on September 7, 1876. From top to bottom: Bodies of Clell Miller and Bill Caldwell [aka Stiles]; Cole Younger; Charlie Pitts (two rows); Bob Younger; the Northfield Bank. (Wikimedia Commons.)
Luckily for Frank and Jesse James, the two brothers had decided to go their own way, escaping to Dakota Territory. After things had cooled down, they went to Nashville, Tennessee, where they started rebuilding their gang and planning new robberies. Jesse and Frank James managed to escape and, for the rest of their lives, denied ever having been in Minnesota.
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