Is he dead or alive?

[Stan H]

 am curious why there are so many out there that, dispite facts to the contrary, want to continue the myth that some of history's more famous or infamous people did not actually die when history says they did.

 

Jessie James

Billy the Kid

Bunch and Sundance

Bloody Bill Anderson

William Calrk Quantrill

 

etc,,,,,

 

What is with this? Is it just a part of the "conspiracy" personality types?

 

I tend to believe commonly accepted historical facts, unless some very valid information is brought to light. So far, that has not happened in thses cases.

 

Opinions?

[Chet Rollins]

He’s dead? OMG…how do you know? I don’t believe it! Did you see his body?

Seriously, how do you know that they were killed? There in lies the problem, how do you or anybody else know one way or the other? You read it in the paper, you were told by someone else, but can you trust what you read or were told? For every fact to explain your point of view there is another fact to dispute it. Most book’s are written to explain the author’s point of view, newspapers too and this was especially true in the old west. Take the opposing views of Curly Bill’s death by the Epithaph and the Nugget. People choose to believe one way or the other and it commonly doesn’t have anything to with the truth.
Growing up in Utah every old timer could tell you that they knew someone that knew someone else that met Butch Cassidy in 1925. I read every book on Butch and I could launch into an hour long lecture that would prove to you that Butch did return. Not anymore and all because of a photograph taken in South America. Now I can launch into a discussion that will prove to you that he died in Bolivia. I could have doggedly held onto my original belief, I chose not to. How do I know the photo was real? Well partly because I read the research that others had done and wieghed the differences, because I chose to. I don’t believe everything anybody tells me or believe everything that I read, because I chose to.

On a personal note, I believe that some people can change….to a degree. They can live peacably for a while until life encroaches into their garden and then they revert to their nature…sometimes. I don’t think Billy the Kid or Jesse James could have changed enough to disappear into the mix. I know that Butch Cassidy did try and almost made it, but then reverted back to old habits.

But JFK’s body was kept alive in the bottom of Onassis’ boat and I sat next to Elvis last week at McD’s.

[Melvin Graf]

Some people love a good conspiracy. They can't be convinced by facts because facts are simply no fun. Wishful thinking and illogic "logic" is their form of "high." Some of their blather makes Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine look like a serious discussion. It's impossible for them to accept that Jesse James was murdered by one of his own guys in his own living room. They want to believe that the only way Jesse could have died would have been in a glorious hail of gun fire. Therefore, since he couldn't have been killed under such mundane circumstances, he must have faked his own death and lived on. For others it's all about being somehow related to the person in question. I call these types "wannabees." And there's plenty of them!

[flboots]

Like the newpaper editor said in The Ballad of Liberty Valance. When it come to printing the truth or legend, print the legend. As we all know it sells more papers. Another view, if people keep talking about someone than their not really dead.

[Michael]

They are all dead. Jim Morrison also.

[Jay Longley]

In the case of Bloody Bill Anderson, a group I started in 2006 conducted the most comprehensive study of him that has ever been attempted or accomplished. Our findings have proven that Bloody Bill Anderson was not killed in the ambush near Orrick, Missouri in October, 1864 but lived for over 60 years at Salt Creek, Brown County, Texas.
~Jay~

[Rollie W. Taylor]

Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery Yahoo Group Summary:
Admirable goals. Big claims. No evidence. Fictitious findings.

William Columbus Anderson lived for over 60 years at Salt Creek, Brown County, Texas, after relocating from Stone County, MO. He married Martha Elizabeth Anderson in 1863, and their oldest child, Francis Marion Anderson, was born in May 1864. He had no sister named Josephine.

Lieut. William T."Bloody Bill" Anderson married Bush Smith in Grayson County, TX, in March 1864, and was killed in the ambush near Orrick, Missouri, in October 1864. His sister Josephine was killed in the collapse of the Union jail in Kansas City.

Case closed.

You cannot rewrite history.

[Jay Longley]

Rollie, here are the corrections to your mythical view of Bloody Bill Anderson:

1) William C. Anderson arrived in Brown County, Texas in the spring of 1865 after surviving the ambush near Orrick, MO. in Oct. 1864.

2) He married Missouria Elizabeth Anderson (name on her death certificate) in 1866 (Brown County, Texas census 1910).

3) Francis Marion Anderson was the son of Bush Smith and Bill Anderson and was raised by Bill and Missouria on their Salt Creek farm after they were married.

4) Josephine Anderson was William C. Anderson's sisters and was killed in the Kansas City Jail Collapse of 1863 in which his two other sisters were injured, one severely. (Two witnesses who saw photos of Bloody Bill Anderson's sisters at his Salt Creek home and testified to that fact were Lucinda Anderson Whaley and Henry C. Fuller who was a staff writer for the Brownwood Banner-Bulletin and wrote the famous interview with Bloody Bill Anderson in 1924.

5) None of the Stone County Andersons who were alive in 1924, who you claim was William C. Anderson's family ever disputed the fact that this Bill Anderson was the one and only Bloody Bill Anderson of Quantrill's Guerrillas.

~Jay~

[Rollie W. Taylor]

Jay, you still have difficulty facing reality.

1. You have no idea when William C. Anderson arrived in Brown County, TX. The 1860 census record of Stone County, MO, shows James N. and William Anderson in the household of their parents, William M. and Jane Scruggs Anderson. The 1880 census of Brown County, TX, shows both William C. and James N. Anderson, both born in MO, as residents. The 1860 census of Breckenridge County, Kansas Territory, shows William T., James M., Mary E., Josephine, Martha J., and Charles in the home of their parents, William C. and Martha J. Anderson.

2. William C. Anderson did marry Martha Elizabeth Anderson. The 1900 census shows that they had been married 37 years - that places the marriage as 1863. Martha Elizabeth testified under oath that she had been married in about 1860.

3. You are blowing smoke with the unfounded claim that Francis Marion Anderson was the child of Bush Smith. The death certificate of F. M. (Francis Marion) Anderson shows that his father was William Anderson and his mother was Elizabeth Anderson. The informant was his wife of 60 years, Ann Green. The 1900 census shows that Martha Elizabeth Anderson was the mother of 12 children - 10 by William C. Anderson, and 2 prior to their marriage that were raised by her parents. The 1910 census shows that William C. Anderson was married ONCE and Martha Elizabeth Anderson was married twice. Tell us more about the "most comprehensive study attempted or accomplished" by the Yahoo Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery Group.

4. You did get something right. Josephine was killed in the collapse of the Union jail. So William Anderson had pictures of his sisters. Would you care to explain how anyone in Brown County, TX, would know what Bloody Bill's sisters looked like? Were they autographed, "younger sister of Bloody Bill Anderson?" William C. Anderson had 4 sisters, Mary Ann, Parsedda, Martha Ann, and Elizabeth. Did you ever consider the possibility that these pictures might be of them? I would be embarrassed to offer such a flimsy argument as proof that these pictures proved anything.

5. A rather stupid statement, since by 1924 all of the Stone County Andersons who lived in MO during the Civil War were deceased.
His mother and father, William M. and Jane Scruggs Anderson died before 1900.
John Henry Anderson, his oldest brother who remained in Stone County MO died in 1909.
His brother, Francis Marion Anderson who lived in Hays County, TX, died before 1910.
His brother, David Q. Anderson died in Brown County, TX, in 1885.
His brother, James Noble Anderson, died in Brown County, TX, in 1900.

Not a one of them came back from the grave to deny that William C. Anderson was Bloody Bill Anderson.

[Glynda Campbell]

Rollie ,here is the 1860 census that shows our folks....

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostone/census/1860wash.html

Here is the 1860 census of Stone County, Mo. Washington Township with my 3rd Gr.Grandfather Samuel Anderson # 22 .He was neighbors to the Cox family and also other relatives ,the Gentry's # 58 Phillip Trammell and his wife Parace(?), who was the sister to William C. Anderson., who gave the reporter Fuller his story.

Here you will find John Cox # 27 with his son James also William Cox and his wife Cordelia # 37. They were the reason William C.Anderson left Mo. and never went back.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostone/census/1860galena.html

Here is the family of Clemuel Davis and the Shannon Family. There was a rumor that money was owed to Clemuel Davis from the Anderson's. Was this reason enough to kill him ?And of course the onset of the Civil War.

Glynda

[Fran Bolton]

Rollie, you said:"Tell us more about the "most comprehensive study attempted or accomplished" by the Yahoo Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery Group."

Before arriving at a conclusion in your person of interest research, you must first conduct a reasonably exhaustive search for all pertinent information. Logically, this means trying to find several different sources for the same information, to give you the best chance at arriving at a well-researched, substantiated conclusion.
What this group needs, is to locate and document those different sources that confirm the information gleaned from the 1924 newspaper interview, before they can proclaim the "most comprehensive study attempted or accomplished"
Without that search, and those sources, their Bloody Bill Mystery study is not the most comprehensive ever attempted, and their Bloody Bill Mystery will remain a mystery.
In contrast, the Bloody Bill mystery has been solved by the two William Andersons in question themselves.
How, one may ask?
Simple. They left a trail of bread crumbs in the forest, that leads back to their homes, their families.
Those bread crumbs actually are in the form of census records every ten years from 1840-1920, recording the family groups of both Anderson men, (only one had a sister Josephine) land deed records from MO and TX showing the Brownwood Bloody Bill claimant was in TX in 1859, documents showing he was paying taxes there in 1863, marriage records, death certificates, birth certificates, and other records until 1927.
Bloody Bill's breadcrumb trail stops in 1864.
Brownwood Bill's trail continues to 1927.

FRAN
May Alex be nothing more than a big blowhard bluffer.

[Fran Bolton]

To give your corrections to Rollie merit for the interested reader:


1) Please provide documentation, such as tax records, etc, that William C. Anderson arrived in Brown County, Texas in the spring of 1865", per your statement: "William C. Anderson arrived in Brown County, Texas in the spring of 1865 after surviving the ambush near Orrick, MO. in Oct. 1864."


4) Please describe what type of photos of Josephine Anderson were seen in 1924, photos that were taken before 1863, the year she was killed, per your statement:"Two witnesses who saw photos of Bloody Bill Anderson's sisters at his Salt Creek home and testified to that fact were Lucinda Anderson Whaley and Henry C. Fuller who was a staff writer for the Brownwood Banner-Bulletin and wrote the famous interview with Bloody Bill Anderson in 1924."



Fran Bolton

[Michael]

"Bloody Bill" Anderson died October 26, 1864. You and your little group have proven NOTHING.