BIOGRAPHY OF THE THE HON. JACOB F. JAMES of Manchester NH
------------------------------------
Information located at http://www.nh.searchroots.com/Manchester
On a web site about GENEALOGY AND HISTORY OF MANCHESTER NEW HAMPSHIRE 
TRANSCRIBED BY JANICE BROWN 
Please see the web site for my email contact.
----------------------------------
The original source of this information is in the public domain, 
however use of this text file, other than for personal use, is 
restricted without written permission from the transcriber 
(who has edited, compiled and added new copyrighted text to same).
========================================================
SOURCE:
Manchester, A Brief Record of its Past and A Picture of Its Present, 
including an account of is settlement and its growth as town and city; 
a history of its schools, churches, societies, banks, post-offices, 
newspapers and manufactures; a description of its government, police 
and fire department, public buildings, library, water-works, 
cemeteries, streets, streams, railways and bridges; a complete list of 
the selectmen, moderators and clerks of the town and members of the 
councils, marshals and engineers of the city, with the state of the 
cote for mayor at each election; the story of its part in the war of 
the rebellion with a complete list of its soldiers who went ot the war; 
and sketches of its representative citizens; Manchester N.H.; John B. 
Clark; 1875
-------------------
page 414
****
THE HON. JACOB F. JAMES
****
Jacob F. James was born in Deerfield NH July 9, 1817, and is the son
of Moses and Martha (Young) James. He has six brothers and one sister
of whom there survive Joseph Y., of Warren, Penn., Josiah S. of
Raymond NH, and Mary F., the wife of Loring Pickering of Brooklyn NY.
His father, a farmer, removed to Candia shortly after the birth of his
son, and the latter spent his boyhood in farming. At the age of
fourteen he went to Lowell and became an operative in one of the
carding-rooms in a mill owned by the Lowell Manufacturing Company.
  After spending four years in Lowell, he left the mills and entered
the old Baptist seminary at New Hampton, NH, since removed to
Fairfax, VT, where he spent two years. Dr. Charles Wells and
Joseph E. Bennett of this city being pupils of the institution at the
same time.  In April 1837, he returned to Lowell to take charge of the
carding-room in which he had worked, and, three years later, he left
that mill to superintend a carding-room for the Massachusetts
corporation in the same place.
  In February 1842 he accepted an invitation to come to Manchester and
take charge of the two carding-rooms in number one mill belong to the
Stark Mills, and in less than two years was made overseer of all the
carding-rooms in the yard, keeping this position until September 1845,
since when he has devoted himself to making surveys and conveyances,
a business of which he had acquired a knowledge at school.
  In 1845 Mr. James was elected, by the Whig party, representative to
the general court from Manchester, and was re-elected the next year.
In the spring of 1847 he was elected mayor and servd through 1847 and
1848 and until October 1849, when he was displaced by the election of
Warren L. Lane. He was the nominee of the Republican party in the fall
of 1856 and was elected by a large majority, serving through 1857.
He was the chief engineer of the fire department in 1851 and 1855.
In 1862 he was the second member of the committee which had charge of
building the new high-school house and devoted considerable time to
the superintendence of the work. He was six years one of the county
commissioners for Hillsborough county, being elected in 1864 and 
re-elected in 1867. Since 1867, as a member of the committee which has
the public cemeteries of the city in charge, he has given much 
attention to their care and decoration. He has been a trustee of the
Amoskeag Savings Bank since its organization.
  Mr. James married, in 1840, Harriet, the daguther of Charles Priest
of Leominster, Mass., who is still living. They hve had three children,
all of whom are dead.
  Mr. James has borne a very conspicuous part in Manchester since it
became a city. He has enjoyed to a remarkable degree the confidence
of the people, a confidence he has never forfeited. Honest and
trustworthy in whatever he holds, whether as the highest official of
the city, as the executor or administrator of the numerous estates
with the settlement of which he has been entrusted, or as a guardian
of children he always discharges his duties conscientiously and with
high notions of right and wrong. Careful, prudent and circumspect,
he is highly esteemed by those who have been obliged to look to others
for advise in business and other relations.


(end)