Merced-Tuolumne-Stanislaus County CA Archives Biographies.....James, Henry George 
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Author: John Outcalt (1925)

CAPT. HENRY GEORGE JAMES

   Few men have had a more interesting, as well as serviceable career than the
late Capt. Henry George James, a native of Camborne, Cornwall, England, and the
son of William and Elizabeth Eva James, who had three sons, all born at
Camborne, the others having been Edward and William. The elder James, a
blacksmith by trade, was a member of an English exploring company which visited
South America, and having accidentally broken his ankle, he was carried over the
Andes Mountains lashed to a chair strapped to the back of a stalwart native.
Returning to England, he immigrated to the United States, about 1832. His
brother, Edward, took part in the Black Hawk War. He was a correspondent of the
St. Louis Democrat and lost his life in war journalistic service. During the
trouble with the Indians in this Black Hawk outbreak, the men of Iowa County,
Wis., formed companies for drill, and so did their sons; and thus it happened
that Henry G. James was dubbed "Captain," a title he always bore.

   He came out to California in 1850, walking across the Isthmus of Panama in
the more primitive days before the railroad was built there, and upon his
arrival at Sonora, Tuolumne County, he engaged in mining. Later he went into the
cattle business and in time became one of the largest cattle men in Stanislaus
County, and for twenty years he furnished cattle, hogs and sheep to wholesale
butchers in San Francisco. During his experience in furnishing beef for a
butcher firm in Sonora, he once made a journey to the coast to purchase stock;
meeting a company of men in charge of a band of steers, Capt. James bought what
he wanted and started to drive them home. Before he had traveled far he was
overtaken by the real owners of the steers, who informed him that the cattle had
been stolen. The Captain and his companions pursued the thieves to San
Francisco, where they obtained the assistance of Capt. Harry Love, a famous
detective of that time, by whom one of the thieves was arrested. The other made
his escape. While on the way back with their prisoner, Captain James and party
stopped to have lunch and ostensibly to give the prisoner a trial. They assumed
an air of carelessness and the thief thought that it would be a good opportunity
to escape; so he crawled off into the chaparral; but several shots followed him
and he was killed. No one knew whose shot did the business.

   In 1873, at Salida, Stanislaus County, Captain James was married to Miss
Nannie Jamison, the daughter of A. H. Jamison, a native of Arkansas, who served
for two terms as supervisor in Stanislaus County when the county seat was at
Knights Ferry. One daughter married John R. Barnett, sheriff of Madera County.
Captain James was a Democrat and a sympathizer with, and an active supporter of
the Confederacy of the Southern States. He served at one time as a trustee of
Modesto. He belonged to the Masons and assisted with their ritual at the laying
of the cornerstone of the Stanislaus County court house. He died at the home of
his sister, Mrs. Root, at Salida in 1901 or 1902.


Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF
MERCED COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
WITH A
Biographical Review
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development
from the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
JOHN OUTCALT

ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1925

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