James Copeland (outlaw) - Later Years

Later Years

Wages and McGrath attempted to collect a disputed debt for fellow clan member Allen Brown. James Andrew Harvey had purchased, in good faith, a farm from Brown, who did not hold clear title to the property. Unable to establish ownership, Harvey refused to pay the outstanding debt. Brown passed the loan along to Wages, who was to either collect the money or kill Harvey. However, Harvey killed Wages and McGrath.

On July 15, 1848, James Copeland and his gang rode to James Harvey’s home on Red Creek in Perry County (now Forrest County), Mississippi. They had been offered one-thousand dollars by Wages' father, to avenge his son's death. Here, the Copeland clan fought a blazing gun battle, which resulted in the death of Harvey and one of Copeland’s men. Friends carried the mortally wounded Harvey to John Dale's home in northwestern Harrison County (now Stone County), where he died several days later and was buried in the nearby Dale Cemetery.

Although Copeland escaped the gun battle, he was eventually captured near Mobile in 1849, tried for his Alabama crimes, and sentenced to a four-year prison term. Upon completion of the prison term, Copeland was transferred to Mississippi to stand trial for the Harvey killing, for which he was convicted and sentenced to hang. Before his death on the gallows in 1857, Copeland made a full confession to Sheriff J.R.S. Pitts in Perry County, Mississippi, naming each member of the clan. Many clan members were prominent citizens of Mobile and the surrounding area.

Copeland's body was buried on the banks of the Leaf River near Augusta, Mississippi. After two or three days, the body disappeared, however and a skeleton was purportedly made of his remains. The skeleton was allegedly exhibited at McInnis and Dozier Drugstore in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in the late 19th Century. In the early 1900s, the skeleton vanished and has never been seen again.

Copeland detailed how his clan had buried some $30,000 in gold in a swamp near Mobile and later reburied the treasure in the Catahoula Swamp of Hancock County, Mississippi. Rumors have circulated for decades of Copeland gold caches, still unclaimed, hidden around the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The James Copeland legend lives today, as treasure hunters search sections of the Mississippi Gulf Coast for burial sites of the Copeland gang's ill-gotten gains.