Napa County CA Archives Biographies.....Ham, Elijah D. 1846 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 29, 2007, 4:01 pm

Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1891)

ELIJAH D. HAM, attorney at law, has resided in California for sixteen years, and
for the past nine years in Napa. He was born in Talladega County, Alabama, in
1840. His parents were James T. and Elizabeth (Whaley) Ham, his father a native
of Petersburg, Virginia, and his mother of Walker County, Georgia. They removed
while he was a child to Bedford County, Tennessee, where they lived until he
reached the age of fifteen years, and then to Washington County, Arkansas. His
father, who was a Union man, died during the war from the effects of exposure
incurred in the cold winter of 1863, his feet being frozen while lying out to
avoid the Confederate troops, he then having three sons in the Union service.
Judge Ham received his education in Tennessee, and later in the Arkansas College
at Fayetteville, where he took the usual course. He studied law, was admitted to
the bar, and was fairly launched in his profession in Huntsville, Arkansas, when
the war broke out. He with other Union men was obliged to leave home and live in
the mountains to avoid being either conscripted By the Confederate forces or
hanged as a Union sympathizer. Early in 1862 he escaped into Missouri and joined
Bowen's Battalion, attached to the headquarters of General Curtis. He was
immediately detailed as a messenger and scout, carrying dispatches from one
command to another; a service for which he was well fitted, owing to his
thorough familiarity with the country and the mountains. He was soon appointed
Chief of Scouts, with the rank and pay of a Captain of cavalry, and held this
important post under Generals Brown, Tutten and Schofield, with headquarters at
Springfield, Missouri. He continued in this position until February, 1863, when
he was commissioned Major of the First Arkansas Infantry Volunteers, serving in
that capacity until the close of the war, and participating in all the battles
of southwestern Missouri and northern Arkansas, including Pea Ridge, Cotton
Plant, Prairie Grove and Fayetteville. This last was especially noted as a fight
between Arkansas Union men on one side and Confederate forces on the other, and
resulted in driving the Confederate forces from their section of the country.
About this time he was appointed by President Lincoln United States District
Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, which embraced the eleven western
counties of Arkansas, as well as the whole Indian Territory. He held this office
until 1868, and was then appointed by Governor Clayton, Circuit Judge at
Fayetteville. He resigned this position in 1874, when he came to California,
where he settled in Santa Rosa, and engaged in the practice of law until 1879,
when he spent one year in Portland, Oregon. Returning to California he settled
in Napa, resuming his practice, which he has continued since that time. He was
married in Arkansas, in 1857. His wife's health requiring a change of climate,
he took her to Denver, Colorado, where she died, after a residence of about nine
months. Some thirteen years ago he married Miss Julia Conn, a daughter of Dr.
Conn. There are three children: Rosa, the wife of W. W. Wright, cashier of the
Hot Springs (Arkansas) Savings Bank and Treasurer of the city of that name;
Lucie, the wife of L. W. Gregg, attorney at law at Fayetteville, Arkansas, son
of Judge Gregg, formerly Chancellor and one of the Judges of the Supreme Court;
and Kate, at the present time visiting in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Judge Ham is a
member of Yount Lodge, No. 12, F. & A. M., and of Kit Carson Post, No. 74, G. A. R.

Additional Comments:
Extracted from

Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California.

Illustrated, Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast
from the Earliest Period of its Occupancy to the Present Time, together with
Glimpses of its Prospective Future; Full-Page Steel Portraits of its most
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers and also of
Prominent Citizens of To-day.

"A people that takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendents." – Macauley.

CHICAGO
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1891.


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