Train Robbery.
James “Jim” F. Berry was a member of the Black Hills Bandits who participated in the Big Springs Robbery in Nebraska.
The son of Caleb and Virginia Fulkerson Berry, he was the fifth of ten children and is believed to have been born in 1838 in Callaway County, near Shamrock, Missouri. His father was a farmer and landowner, and he probably had a “normal” upbringing. Around 1860, he moved westward and spent years traveling from Nevada to Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Texas, making regular trips back to Missouri.
Caught up in the gold fever, he lived near the mining camp of Austin, Nevada, in 1861. There, he met the Cyrus Price family, who were also from Callaway County, Missouri. When the Civil War began, the “Show-Me-State” fought itself, and the Price family escaped the turmoil. James soon began seeing Cyrus Price’s daughter, Mary Elizabeth, whom he married around 1863. The couple would eventually have six children, the first of whom was born near the Reese River, Nevada, in 1864.
Traveling from one mining camp to another, Berry was known to have been in Reese River, Nevada; Salmon, Idaho; Bannack, Virginia City, Helena, and Butte, Montana; Los Angeles, California; and probably numerous other places. In 1867, the family lived in Bannack, Montana, where Mary Elizabeth gave birth to twin daughters. About six months later, Mary Elizabeth and her three children returned to Missouri without Jim. She returned, however, as she bore a fourth child in Los Angeles in 1869. However, her fifth child was born back in Mexico.
By this time, Berry is thought to have largely given up mining and been living as a bandit. By 1876, he joined Joel Collins, Sam Bass, Jack Davis, Tom Nixon, and Bill Heffridge. They robbed several stages in the Deadwood, South Dakota, area and were known as the Black Hills Bandits.
Sam Bass.
Finding stagecoach robberies not profitable enough, they split up and soon decided to rob a train. On September 18, 1877, they robbed the Union Pacific Railroad at Big Springs, Nebraska, making off with more than $60,000. After dividing the money, the outlaws split into pairs, each headed in a different direction. Berry and Tom Nixon headed to Missouri. However, Jim’s wife, Mary Elizabeth, gave birth to their sixth child just a day after the robbery. Myra Berry was born in Butte, Montana, on September 19, 1877. It is unknown whether she accompanied him back to Missouri, but he did not arrive in Mexico, Missouri, until October 5, so she probably did, as she was known to have been there after his death.
In the meantime, a $10,000 reward had been offered for the fugitives, which described Berry like this: Â 5 feet 9 inches high, 180 pounds, 30 or 35 years old, sandy or red hair with a bit of gray in it, sandy beard and mustache, chin beard quite long, red or florid complexion, blue eyes, full round face which gets very red when he has been drinking, talks a great deal.
The day after he arrived in Mexico, as soon as the town’s three banks opened, he made a fatal mistake—trading $9,000 in gold coins for currency. The banks then shipped the coins to St. Louis, Missouri, where they quickly identified them as probably coming from the Big Springs robbery. Three days after trading the gold for currency, detectives arrived in Mexico to confer with the Audrain County Sheriff, Henry Glasscock.
The authorities quickly went to Berry’s home near Shamrock, Missouri, but found nothing. However, acting on a tip, they continued searching the area and finally located him in the woods. When Berry spied the lawmen, he immediately fled but received a load of shotgun pellets in his legs. Berry pleaded with Sheriff Glasscock to shoot him rather than make him stand trial, but the authorities loaded him into a wagon and took him back to Mexico instead. In the end, Berry would get his wish. He would not stand trial. Two days later, after developing gangrene in his wounded legs, he died on October 21, 1877. He was 39 years old.
He was buried next to his mother, who had preceded him in death only by a few hours. Some say that his mother died of a broken heart after finding out her son was an outlaw. The grave is in the Liberty Churchyard Cemetery, approximately three miles North and West of Shamrock, Missouri.
In spring 1880, his widowed wife, Mary Elizabeth, and their children returned west, settling in Benton, Montana, near her family.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.
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