Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1877 — REUBEN B. JAMES. [ARTICLE]

REUBEN B. JAMES.

Raaben Bain June* tu born In Dwrteld, Xtooklnghim county, Mow Hampshire, June 17, 1810, and died at LaCoy poetoffice, Crawford oouaty, Kansas, March 29, 1877. Hia boyhood waa pasted on a email farm and in a country blacksmith abop where he served a partial apprenticeship. Hia father waa a poor industrious man having a large family to support and was an aide to give hia older ohildren more than such au education as might be obtained in a district school fifty years ago; but he was ambitious to receive a better education, sad yearned for collegiate hoeora. At the age of nineteen hfa father gsve him hi* lime, that is, allowed him to make his own contracts and transact business for himself without parental supervision. He improved this opportunity by teaching terms ot school and saving hu salary to bo spent in attendance at an academy. In 1831 he waa attending the Academical and Theological Institution of New Hampton, but health failing was finally compelled to ahandon the eonrae of education he had marked out and at the age of twenty-four, when “nearly fitted to enter college,” ns hia disry reads, was ootnp«lled to elose hit books and retire from study. Tbe next week he appeared before the public as an editor of a religious newpaper, but his health being nnequal to the task was soon compelled to relinquish it. Then diifted down into Massachusetts, Connecticut, Nsw York and New Jersey, sometimes as a school teaeher and at others as a mercantile derk. The year 1837 found him engaged in mercantile persutts at Evan sport, Williams county, Ohio, and on tbe Ist day of February of that year he took the prescribed oath of office and entered upon the duties of post master at that plaee, having been commissioned by Amos Kendall, Post-master-General under President Jackson. In July following was eleoted a justice of tbe peace, and being an active local politician in a sparsely settled district soon monopolised several of the minor public offices of the locality. In a letter to a friend, which is dated January 8, 1889, he wrote “I am about resigning all my public offices. I have a number of them in a small way. Last week I had an office under the school district, the township, the counties of Williams and Paulding,.the state, and the United State*. On tbe whole these form most too tangling alliances, and on the principle of rotation, I will give up some three or four of them anyhow.” September, 1839, he cotiimeneed .the regular study of law under the direction of Horace Sessions of Defiance. Next year he waa elected captain of a state mililiar company. February Ist, 1840, was elected by tbe geheral assembly of Ohio, by a vote of 39 to 19 blanks, to tbe office of associate jadge of the common pleas court of Williams county, and was commissioned by Gov. Wilson Shannon for a term of seven years. Ou the 13th <l*7 of April, 1840, at Napoleon, Ohio, he met Miss Sarah Norton ' t« whom he was married on the 10th of July following. The children of the uuion were nine in number —five tons and four daughters Tbe wife and all the children, except a son who died iu infancy, are •till living. .

At au early age the subject. of title memoir developed strong religion* tendencies which were partly the outgrow th of a natural organism and partly instilled by the teachings of « mother who died when h* w»« sixteen year* old and Cor whom be cherished the tendereet affection up to the last years of iilMiife. His earlier religious instructions were front those who professed ttw Christian faith 94 taught by the Vf* Will Baptist denomination, ffd ms the 4th day Of Qeeetober ,Mlowing bis ?I kt birth day anniversary ** eoid and stormy, when t|io .wnter froxe" to bis clothing was inyrtieed by i inntersion and joined tire JJeptists in jtlifflf* 1501) Jrfinuuion.■ f 'Apr* iii, 1849, nt EvansmW w 4 hi? mb Cwvtt l

organised a church of the Regular Baptist denomination, the first one In Williams and Paulding counties, of that slate. July 8, 1843, the Baplistohuroh at Rideevilte, Henry county, 0., issued a license to him to preaeh and next day he delivered bis first sermon. December 11, 1844, he was regularly ordained a preacher in the Baptist church at Chesterfield, 0., and afterwards served the Missionary Baptist denomination in this oapacity iu Michigan, New York and Indiana. At Rensselaer, Indiana, January 1, 1880, he transferred his member ship to the Disciples, Campbellites or Christiana; but a majority of the membership adopting a species of materialistio doctrine known as “soul-sleeping Adventism,”he withdrew, and subsequently (in 1871) joined with a body of Disoiples in Washington township, Crawford oounty, Kansas, in which faith ho died.

He oaine to Rensselaer, Jasper oounty, Indiana, July 31, 1853, and settled on a farm. April 24, 1661, he enlisted ash private soldier in a company of infantry organized by Captain (afterward Major General) R. 11. Milroy, which company was mustered into the United States servioe as Company G. of the 9th Indiana Volunteers, tor a term of three months, and did service in Western Virginia. He was with til* command at Philiippi ami Bealington. Was honorably discharged July 29, 1861, at expiration of his tune of enlistment At his enlistment he was 51 years old, but iu order to enter the service passed as 44. Was county surveyor in 1860 and 1861, and in 1865 was elected for a term of two years. July 4, 1864, he was eominlfsioneil by President Lincoln Captain and Commissary of Subsistance of volunteers, and assigned to duty on the staff of Brigadier-General Joseph A. Cooper commanding the Ist brigade, 2d division, 23d array corps (army of the Ohio); was finally mustered out of service at the collapse of the rebellion and disbanding of the army. May 30, 1885, was brevetted Major “lor 1 efficient and meritorious services.” In the summer of 1865 he bought the office and material of the* iaxper Signal and commenced the publication ot the Prairie Telegraph, a weekly loeal political uowspaper at Rensselaer, whish was sold three years afterwards to other parties and merged into what is now called the Rensselaer Union. Ir the spring of 1870, he moved to Washington township, Crawford county, Kansas, where he continued to reside until his death. With a mind naturally strong and active, a restless disposition and being quite a vigorous as well as an independent thinker, he became prominently known wherever he went and made warm friends. He was deeply, thoroughly religious, and held tenaciously to the principles, doctrines and ideas that he espoused. He was sternly virtuous and abhorred the appearance of siu and semblance of vice. Ii - temperance, unchaslity, profanity and obscenity were held by him in utter detestation. It is probably true that he uever tasted spirituous liquor but once in his life* and tit at a single swallow of brandy before he was twenty-one years old;* he never used "tobauco iu any' form; seldom drank either tea or coffee. Iu thought and conversation he was one of the purest of men. An oath, an obscene word or a smutty auecdote have on many occasions driven him from the company of men, and those who gave utterance to them i i his presence ever afterwards occupied a lower place in his estimation. His chief delight was found in the study of the Sacred Scriptures, •nd in literary pursuits of a religious character. But he also penetrated into oilier paths of literature, and as early as the age ot sixteen years commenced writiug compositions both in prose and verse, some of which may yet be seen among his -private papers, : whila many are He was a good letter writer and an exceptional correspondent, and numbered among those who appeared to di * rive pleasure from his letters geq--11 ©man that stood high in the estfcmat'ion of this nation. liis newspaper contributions extended over 13 period of more than forty years

and embraced topics pertaining to science, art, religion, politics, agriculture, etc., etc., and found welcome place in the prominent columns of leading journals in a dozen states of the Union. In 1848 or 1849, possibly four or five years earlier, he commenced writing a work that was isaned by ltedfield of New York oily, in 1852, with the title of “Onlines of Prophetic Revelation.” The title page of thiabook explains it as “being a concise explanation of the Revelation of St. John, in wbioh the design of each chapter is explained; the sense of the emblems,symbols, figures, metaphors, and similes is given; and the whole illustrated by history.” An edition of one thousand copies was printed, ail of which with the exception of a oouple of hundred volumes, was destroyed by fire in the house where they were stored. He was never afterwards able to afford the expense of printing another edition. Of the copies preserved he made donations from time to time to friends, some of whom have appreciated their character and the vast amount of historical research, study, and labor that was expended on their production. The last four or five yeai sot his life were chiefly devoted to the revision and rewriting of this book, tlve publication of which was the darling but unfulfilled hope of his declining days. He completed this task of levision to his own satisfaction several months before his death, and when seized with the fatal sickness (pneumonia) had made considerable progress with a work of similar caracter and design relating to the prophesies contained in the Book ol Daniel. lion. Daniel W. Voorhees is already being talked of in democratic circles as a possible candidate to succeed Senator Morton two years hence. Probably Gov. Hendricks will say a word about this thing when tbe proper time arrives. Tbe reduction of tbe public debt dur ing the two terms of President Grant’s gjuliniiiistrution reached the very gratifyvßg sum of 4436,882,1 lU, and yet the democrats bowl about radical rule and ruin. Shame on them! A joint resolution has been adopted by the lower house of the Ohio legislature, proposing an ameudment to the constitution abolishing grand juries, and providing for direct action by prosecuting attorneys.