John James

SOURCE: Submitted by Eric James

SURNAMES: JAMES, HALL, TUMBELSTON, LEE

JOHN JAMES was only 5 years old when he came to Champaign County with his family. In his mid-fifties he entered his recollections of his early life there with vivd clarity: "My father is of English descent on his paternal side. My mother's name was HALL and her people were mixed Americans. Both were born and raised in Pulaski Co, Kentucky. I was born on Flat Lick Creek, same county and state Apr. 29, 1832. In Feb. 1857, Father (Cyrenius Waite JAMES ) and family and Uncle Henry JAMES and his young bride (who was Rachel TUMBELSTON) moved to Illinois. Jesse Nance hauled us to Danville, Kentucky in a covered wagon where we stayed all night with Uncle Mack JAMES (Joseph McAllister JAMES). Uncle Henry being drunk all the way and his young wife crying all the time, Uncle Mack offered her $50.00 if she would go back to her father. We traveled to Danville to Louisville on R.R. train, crossed the Ohio River on a large ferry boat stayed all night in a hotel in the Indiana side and from our window saw a big fire over the river in Louisville. We went on to Pesotum Illinois on the train. At Pesotum we stayed in a small depot until Father walked out to Squire LEE's 4 miles and got a wagon and team and hauled us out there. We lived in Champaign Co. near Uncle Squire LEE's ( husband of Elizabeth Ann JAMES ) then moved to Uncle Mack's farm in Douglas Co. 15 miles s.w. In 1861 Father enlisted in the U.S. army and was a soldier 3 years passing through 17 of the great battles of there rebellion in Sherman's and Grant's armies. He got wounded slightly once at Rebecca, Georgia (Resaca, Georgia) was parolled and came home and stayed a few days and returned to his command, then in Tennessee. During the war mother and I tried to farm and did make a crop but had a hard time to keep something to eat and wear. Everything was high priced and Father's 13 dollars a month was not sufficient to keep us supplied as there was thena family of Mother myself, WM HENRY, GEORGE MACK, SQUIRE MARTIN, AND MARY MARTHA, 4 children. My little and only sister MARY MARTHA only 2 years old got choked to death on a grain of corn. While Father was a prisoner of war at Marietta, Georgia 1000 miles away but in a vision the nightand hour she died he saw her come to near his pallet dressed in white and was the most beautiful, Father woke up his bedfellow and told him of the strange vision and looked at his watch and noted the time. When Father came home in 1865 I was 13 yrs. old and could do a man's work on the farm. Father's health was bad and I had all the work to do. We had nothing left but a poor pony team and old wagon and 1 cow. I had never been to school but nine weeks in my life but had picked up a fair education and had read the New Testament through one that Father brought home and given me. Now I will go back and tell some other things connected with my life in Illinois for it was there the greatest epoch in my life and history occured, when we lived there it was a new and sparcely settled country and not very much society schools and preaching until after the war. Just before I was 16 I professed religion and joined the "New Light"church and from that time I became an active sunday school and churchworker and I now see that was the very best thing that could have happened. While Father was gone to the war I grew out from under his rule and influence so that when he came home I felt in me a feeling ofrebellion against him and was never willing for him to boss me as Icalled it, so in the summer after I was 16 , I left home "ran away" afternight I went to another county about 30 miles from home taking only one extra shirt and my testament that I loved so well. I hired to a man to herd cattle, so did not have much to do but put in all my spare time reading my testament. I planned to get myself plenty of clothes andthen go to school for I wanted to get an education I wanted that above everything else, of course I loved my dear mother and the children,wanted to see them and went home in the fall on a visit intending to go back to Philo, Illinois where a man had offered to board me and send me to school for my work of nights and mornings but Father begged me to stay at home and promised me an education so I stayed on account of our financial condition and father's feebleness (from hardships and exposure in the war) I never got to go to school any more, I had never went to school but nine weeks and that was to Uncle Henry by a chip fire light until I ruined my eyes that had been afflicted with granulated lids from the time I was 5 yrs. old (our first year in Illinois) but I stayed with my Father and learned to love him again and done all I could for him but read and studied all the time I could, I loved that Sunday School and Prayer meeting and debating societies and sing schools and became active in all that work and I loved the girls too and had several precious sweethearts " that I hated most of to leave" when we came to Texas but I learned to write by writing back to several of them for over a year after. During the summer after I was 18 the neighbors fixed up an old log house with split log seats and plank on pegs in the wall for a writing desk and put me in as teacher over about a dozen children, but my school was a success from the start. It gave me the chance to study and I would study every evening after school was out every lesson that was to come up the next day so I kept ahead of my school. I taught 4 schools at that place and my salary grew from about $20.00 up to $75.00 per month and at the end of the 4th school I had carried my advanced classes up into such high branches as higher arithmetic, algebra, physical geography, philosophy and astronomy and bookkeeping. I had not only taught a good school but had educated myself, so I kept on teaching for 18 years, the last three years a mission teacher to the Indians where I learned to love the Indians and learned their language and can talk it yet, though it has now been 15 years since I quit teaching." John JAMES departed Champaign County with his father and mother to live in Texas. There he continued to educate himself and teach. He also practiced as a Baptist minister. He sold real estate, and became Mayor of Alvarado, Texas; wrote a book titled "My Experience With The Indians"; and he founded the Pioneers & Settlers Association which meets to current day. He died October 4, 1927, leaving nine children, numerougrandchildren, and great granchildren.