James A. James was educated in
the college at Beardstown, Kentucky. He chose as his vocation that of a
farmer, and soon rose above the status of the mediocre citizen, being active
in public affairs for many years. He was a colonel in the Black Hawk war,
was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1848 and served for
four years in the senate of his state. He married Susan O‘Hara, and they
became the parents of ten children, Austin James, the father of Bennett,
being the second born.
Austin James
was born in Monroe county, near the Randolph county line,
December 30, 1823. He received the earlier part of his education at
Harrisonville, whence his family had moved; later he was entered at St.
Mary’s College in Perry county, Missouri, and ultimately became a student
in the University of Missouri. After finishing his education he assisted
his father on his farm, and for a short time, beginning with 1846, was
identified with mining industries in central Iowa. In 1847 he returned to
Harrisonville and enlisted in a company organized for service in the Mexican
war and continued engaged in warfare almost until the termination of that
conflict. Upon the return of peace he exchanged, like so many of the young
citizens, the musket for the ploughshare, the vicinity of Harrisonville
being the scene of his agricultural work. In 1849, at Mitchie (at that time
called “Hardscrabble”) he bought a farm on the Mississippi river, and the
old homestead and three hundred and fifty acres of the original tract of
nine hundred acres remains in the family to the present day. He was married
on April 14, 1852, to
Caroline E. Walker,
formerly of
Monroe county, but at that time residing at Dubuque, Iowa. He died on November
18, 1892, and is survived by his
wife, who is
still strong and active at the age of seventy-nine years, and resides in
Waterloo with her daughters, next door to the family of her son
Bennett,
where both families have resided for the
past fifteen years.
Mrs. James
is one of the few representatives yet living
of the old
fashioned active, industrious
housewife of fifty years ago and is descended from one of the oldest and
best families connected with early settlement of Southern Illinois. Her
brother, Thomas Walker, was editor of one of the early newspapers of
Belleville, where Mrs. James lived for many years, when it was a small
village compared to what it now is. Six children were born of this union, as
follows: Bennett, William, Mary, Frank, Thomas and Carrie. Frank and Thomas are deceased. William (whose wife is a niece of
Colonel William R.
Morrison, deceased) is a physician of large practice at Chester and division
surgeon of the Iron Mountain and Cotton Belt Railways. Mary is the primary
teacher in the Waterloo high school and Carrie is a stenographer for the Estey Piano Company of St. Louis. Austin James was a loyal Democrat in
politics and for several years served as justice of the peace. In 1864 he
was elected to the state legislature and in 1872 his record in the state
assembly was approved by reelection. He served as postmaster at Mitchie
from 1857 until 1891, when, advanced in years, he removed to Harrisonville,
and there he died a year later, lamented by hosts of friends and former
associates who knew him as a good and able man, and one whose judgment was
to be relied upon at any and all times.
The early life of
Bennett
James was passed on a farm and his education was secured in the public
schools and in the Christian Brothers College at St. Louis, At about the age
of twenty-one he left college and himself became a pedagogue, teaching
school in his old home town,
P. 1676
Mitchie. In 1876-7 he went to California, and there for some time acted
in the capacity of deputy sheriff to his uncle,
Bennett James, whose namesake he is, and who held the office
of sheriff there. The following year he came back to Mitchie and again
became an instructor, teaching school in that locality until 1882. From that
year dates his mercantile experiences on any extended scale, although he had
already become somewhat acquainted with mercantile life before going to
California, and conducted a store at Lilly‘s Landing, a mile south of Mitchie, under the firm name of T. & B. James.
He had charge of the river
boat landing known as James’ Landing, and ran his store very successfully
from 1882 to 1887, handling grain at his landing, and from 1891 to 1897
conducted the local post office in connection with the store, succeeding his
father as postmaster. In 1897 he left Mitchie and went to Harrisonville,
where he lived for a short time and then took up his residence. in Waterloo,
which place has since represented his home. Here he embarked in the real
estate and grain business on a larger scale, and his success has been above
the ordinary. He is agent for the Nanson Commission Company of St. Louis and
helped them to secure their right-of-way contracts for the fine line of
grain elevators this firm has along the line of the St. L., I. M. & S.
Railway in Monroe, Randolph, Jackson and Union counties. He is agent for the
large landed interests of William Winkelman, Baer Brothers and others, and
has charge of some three or four thousand acres of land in the bottom part
of the county, collecting rentals from thirty-five or forty tenants, and it
is safe to say that he is as well known in the western part of the county as
any man who might be mentioned. He is also in the fire insurance business,
and writes a nice line of fire insurance in Waterloo and the western part of
the county.
Emily E. Priesker,
of Chaflin Bridge, and the two children born of this
union are
Charles A., a resident of St. Louis and postal clerk on the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; and
Alfred W.,
who is a
printer, located at Centralia, Illinois. The elder son married
Nellie Klinkhardt,
of Hecker,
Monroe county, Illinois, and the younger married
Celia Schmitz,
of Waterloo.
Mr. James'
wife
died in 1885, and in 1889 he married
Katie F.
Clear, of Harrisonville, of
which marriage there is no issue. They maintain a pleasant and hospitable
home and are held in the highest esteem in this section, where their many
fine qualities are too well known to require comment.
Mr.
James is a man of much
influence among his fellow citizens, who hold his opinion of weight and
highly esteem his views on all matters affecting the public welfare. Like
many of the older settlers, he takes much interest in the early history of
his state and particularly the part the James family took in the early
settlement of Illinois, and he prizes with more than ordinary interest a
copy of General James’ “Three Years Among the Indians,” the only copy
perhaps of this book in existence this day. For 19 years Mr. James has held
the office of levee commissioner in Harrisonville and Ivy Landing, levee
district Number 2. He has also been a notary public for the past fifteen
years and was a member of the city council for two terms. He is a faithful
member of the Catholic church, is one of the trustees of the Waterloo church
and is connected with those orders having the particular sanction of his
church, namely: The Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Knights of
Illinois. He is of pleasing personality and very popular, claiming a circle
of friends of generous proportions.
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