author

J. H. (Joseph Have) Hanson

A little-known 19th-century writer remembered for a vivid account of one of the American West's most famous crimes, he turned the Northfield bank raid into fast-moving narrative history. His surviving work captures the excitement, fear, and folklore that quickly grew around the James-Younger Gang.

1 Audiobook

The Northfield Tragedy; or, the Robber's Raid A Thrilling Narrative; A history of the remarkable attempt to rob the bank at Northfield, Minnesota; the Cold-Blooded Murder of the Brave Cashier and an Inoffensive Citizen. The Slaying of Two of the Brigands. The Wonderful Robber Hunt and Capture Graphically Described. Biographies of the Victims, the Captors & the Notorious Younger and James Gang of Desperadoes

The Northfield Tragedy; or, the Robber's Raid A Thrilling Narrative; A history of the remarkable attempt to rob the bank at Northfield, Minnesota; the Cold-Blooded Murder of the Brave Cashier and an Inoffensive Citizen. The Slaying of Two of the Brigands. The Wonderful Robber Hunt and Capture Graphically Described. Biographies of the Victims, the Captors & the Notorious Younger and James Gang of Desperadoes

by J. H. (Joseph Have) Hanson

About the author

Very little biographical information about J. H. Hanson appears to be readily documented in reliable online sources. He is listed by Project Gutenberg as J. H. (Joseph Have) Hanson, and the work currently associated with him there is The Northfield Tragedy; or, the Robber's Raid.

That book was published in 1876 in St. Paul, Minnesota, soon after the attempted robbery of the First National Bank of Northfield by the James-Younger Gang. Hanson presents the event as a dramatic, detailed narrative, mixing reportage, local history, and biographical sketches of the people involved.

Because so little confirmed personal information is easy to verify, Hanson is best understood today through that book itself: a piece of immediate crime writing from the post-Civil War era, and an early example of the kind of true-crime storytelling that helped turn frontier violence into American legend.