I first ran onto the name of Jesse Roper when I was reading about the infamous train robbery that occurred at Olyphant, Arkansas, in the fall of 1893. At the time Roper had been on the run from the law for over a year, after having killed Sheriff Byler of Baxter County in mid June of 1892. When one of the robbers was caught a few days after the train holdup, it was first thought that he was Jesse Roper. After a man who knew Roper viewed the prisoner and said positively that he was not Roper, it was still thought, however, that Roper was probably one of the eight men who had held up the train. (He wasn't.)
While researching other topics, I have since run onto Roper's name two or three more times. From what I've been able to ascertain so far, Roper was apparently never caught, but there were numerous false sightings of the fugitive, and a number of men were captured who were first thought to be Roper but who turned out not to be.
So, now I'm starting to get hooked, and sooner or later I'll probably have to end up delving into the Roper story a little deeper. That's usually how it happens. I run onto the name of a colorful character in Ozarks history or the mention of an infamous incident, and I lodge the name in the back of my mind but don't think much about it at first. If I run onto a second or third mention of the same character or incident, though, I start thinking more seriously about it and usually end up having to write about it in one fashion or another.
4 comments:
end of search?
http://tomrizzo.com/manhunt/
Thanks for the link. I said in my original post that Roper was a character I would probably eventually get around to researching in more detail, but so far I still haven't done so. Maybe some day.
I'm a descendant of Abraham Garland Byler. Several years ago I was contacted by a descendant of Jesse Roper. He told me that Jesse had returned home to his wife in Georgia after the killing of Sheriff Byler. I'm working right now to find some evidence of that.
Unknown, yes I think I'd heard that before about Jesse Roper returning to Georgia, but I've never followed up to try to prove it one way or the other. Please let me know what your research turns up.
Post a Comment