My name is Larry Battreal, but I’m known to many as “Mountain Man”. I take pride in being a hard working country boy. This is how I came across the rifle of Jesse Edward James.
From the summer of 1985 to March 1992, I worked for an old timer. He owned a 1,400 acre farm across the river from the Meramack Caverns. My job consisted of stacking hay bales, mending fences, cutting firewood and barn repair.
I believe it was the summer of 1987, after lunch one day; I was in a hurry to get to the outhouse. I sat down fast and the whole outhouse shifted. As it shifted a board on the wall near the door moved. I reached over for the board to see if it would fall and there sat behind it a rifle. Out of respect and how I was raised, I didn’t touch it since it didn’t belong to me and I didn’t have permission, so I replaced the board. I then went immediately to the old timer and told him I found the rifle in the outhouse. The Old Timer looked at me, smiled and said “son I’m 81 years old, was born in this house and potty trained in that outhouse. I assure you that there is no rifle in the outhouse”. He teased me about the rifle for the rest of the day. Later when we were done working for the day and the other help was sent home the old timer says “come on and show me this mysterious rifle in the outhouse”. I took him to it and moved the board. He walked in picked up the rifle, dusted off the cobwebs, looked at me and smiled and asked “how did you find this?” and then I showed him what I had done and how the board moved. The Old Timer said “OH MY GOD”, then we walked back to the house to show it to his wife.
The Old Timer started telling me the stories about how the farm was originally owned by Jesse James’ family and how Jesse had built that house. There is a family cemetery on top of the hill. He recalled, how as a boy, they would come home from church and there would be all kinds of people having their pictures taken in front of the house. They were constantly running off treasure hunters.
In March 1992, I went to the Old Timer and told him I was no longer going to be able to work for him because I was moving to Indiana. He got up, went to his bedroom, came out with the rifle and handed it to me and says “I’m giving this to you for your honesty about it being in the outhouse. Anyone else would have came back in the middle of the night and stolen it. This is for all your hard work and honesty”. I thanked him and then I departed.
I recently discovered, what appears to be, a map inside a diamond symbol carved on the stock of the rifle. I would like to have any more information I can find out about this rifle. I have included pictures with this letter.
contacted Star Head Light & Lantern & this is what they said, "That lantern you had was used in the early 1900's as a trainman lantern. It's an old kerosene lantern. They used them to read car numbers on the side of the car. There are not many of these lanterns still around so I would hold onto it."
