Joseph A. Dacus (1838–1885) was an American writer and journalist who wrote a history of outlaws Frank and Jesse James and a survey of the 1877 St. Louis general strike.
[3] In 1868, the Public Ledger of Memphis reported that Dacus was then a "Baptist preacher in Illinois," adding that "Within the brief space of five years he has been a grocer, cotton factor, farmer, school teacher, journalist, poet, political 'stump orator', book agent, chief engineer of a flatboat and superintendent of a saw mill.
"[4] He wrote popular novels, including Idle Wild, and then the successful non-fiction Life of the James Boys and Annals of the Great Strike.
[3][5] Dacus teamed up with James W. Buel to write A Tour of St. Louis, or the Inside Life of a Great City, published in 1878.
[1] The 1850 census listed him at age 11 as living in Tipton, Tennessee, District 7, with other Dacus family members, Lewis, 63; Nancy, 47; Buford L., 20; Mary B.
While representing the Republican here he at one time had a personal difficulty with Col. George Vest, in which blows were interchanged.In 1877, Horace (Holly) Hyde, a reporter on the Republican who had just quit his job, was an overnight guest of Dacus in his rooms in a Jefferson City house owned by former Mayor Fred Fisher, when, late at night, Hyde attempted suicide by slitting his throat.
[1] During the American Civil War, Dacus went to San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where, under the name Jose Adison Da Cus, he bought "mountains" filled with gold, according to Judge J.O.
[12] In April 1878, Dacus spoke at a meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences and presented drawings of the ruins of a "vast palace" at Xayi, Chiapas, Mexico.