Will James

William Roderick James (June 6, 1892 – September 3, 1942) was a Canadian-American artist and writer of the American West. He is known for writing Smoky the Cowhorse, for which he won the 1927 Newbery Medal, and numerous "cowboy" stories for adults and children. His artwork, which predominantly involved cowboy and rodeo scenes, followed "in the tradition of Charles Russell", and much of it was used to illustrate his books. In 1992, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Early life

James was born Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufault, in 1892 in Saint-Nazaire-d'Acton, Quebec, Canada, although later, when he began mythologizing his life and in his autobiography, he claimed he was born in Montana. He accounted for his francophone accent by claiming that after his mother died when he was one (from influenza) and his father when he was four (having been gored by a steer), he was adopted by a fur trader ("old trapper Jean" Beaupré, whom he called "Bopy" since childhood) whose native language was French. Additionally, Beaupré was not fluent in English.

James settled near the new Franco-Saskatchewan settlement of Val Marie in 1910 and learned to be a western cowboy. He was taught wrangling by local cowboy Pierre Beaupre, and the two built separate homesteads along the Frenchman River in southwest Saskatchewan. James's property later became part of the Walt Larson ranch, which has been folded into the new Grasslands National Park.

James migrated to the United States, where he assumed the new name "William Roderick James". He came to Nevada from Montana in 1914. He was arrested there for cattle rustling and was sentenced to twelve to eighteen months in prison, which he served first in Ely, Nevada, and then at the Nevada State Penitentiary at Carson City. While in prison he concentrated on his drawing and produced pictures that the Ely Record commended with the recommendation that "with proper training he would soon be able to do first class work." At the state penitentiary he used his art in connection with his parole application, making a sketch entitled "A Turning Point", with the note: "Have had ample time for serious thought and it is my ambition to follow up on my art."