Fisher Family Genealogy

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News: Fisher, Abel

• Title	News: Fisher, Abel
  Short Title	News: Fisher, Abel
  Repository	Macomb Public Library
  Source ID	S30
  Text	Pictured is Abel 'Abe' Fisher, son of Elizabeth Fisher, grandfather of Armon Bissell of Blandinsville. When Abel was a young man, his mother and other family members moved from Missouri to Blandinsville (in the 1840s). Family legend tells of the time that Abe, while still living in Missouri, met up with Jesse James. Following a bank robbery, Jesse James and his gang approached Abe. Jesse was in need of a horse as his was exhausted. Although Jesse's horse was of much better quality, Jesse demanded that Abe trade horses with him; the sooner the better, as a posse was in hot pursuit. Abe and Jesse traded horses, and as Jesse rode off he threw a fistful of bills back at Abe. At a later date Abe spent two years as Blandinsville Constable. (Photo Courtesy of Marie Bissell Johnson)
  Linked to (1)	FISHER Abel

  
  

• Documents

  News: Abel Fisher

  
  

• Notes

  Much of this article is fiction. The Fisher family moved from Pennsylvania not Missouri to Illinois in the 1840's. Also Abel could not have traded horses with Jesse James in the 1840s. Jesse james was not yet born Jesse James was born September 5, 1847. He joined Quantrill's Raiders, a Civil War Confederate ranger unit that operated in Kansas and Missouri from 1864 to 1865. He continued to ride with similar outlawed units even after the the war ended in 1866. These bands committed all manner of crimes including robbery and murder in the years following the war. Jesse's first known bank robbery occurred in Kentucky in 1868 with his brother Frank and Cole Younger. In December 1869, Jesse became famous when he and Frank (most likely) robbed the Davies County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri. The robbery netted little, but Jesse (it appears) shot the cashier, believing him to be Samuel Cox, the Union militia officer who defeated and killed "Bloody Bill" Anderson during the Civil War. Jesse's self-proclaimed attempt at revenge for the Civil War, and the daring escape he and Frank made through the middle of a posse shortly afterward, put his name in the newspapers for the first time.