Brooks-Screven County GaArchives Biographies.....Finch, James Berrien 1838 - between 1909 and 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 30, 2004, 6:11 pm

Author: William Harden
p. 985-987

   JAMES BERRIEN FINCH. For many years intimately associated with the
advancement of the mercantile interests of Quitman, the late James Berrien
Finch, one of the most respected and highly esteemed citizens of his community,
passed his later years retired from all business activities. His earliest
association with this place was in the latter part of the Civil war, where he
did service in the conscript department for some time, and when peace was
finally restored, he opened a mercantile establishment in the city, and there
continued to be actively engaged in that field of enterprise until his
retirement in 1909. Mr. Finch was ever one of the most loyal and public-spirited
of men, and one whose connection with Quitman was one of the fortunate
circumstances of that place. He gave most praiseworthy service to the city as a
public official in many and varied capacities, and to him may be traced directly
the instigation of many an innovation in the communal life of the place. His
death proved a loss indeed to the entire community, and one that will long; be
felt in the places where he was known, esteemed and honored.

   James Berrien Pinch was born in Madison county, Florida, on the plantation of
his father, Charles Finch. Details concerning the parentage and ancestry of Mr.
Finch are all too meager, but it is known that his father was of Scotch-Irish
stock, and that his Grandfather Finch, was one of the early planters of Screven
county, Georgia.

   Reared and educated in Screven county, Charles Finch migrated as a young man
to Madison county, Florida, where he bought land, and with the assistance of his
slaves, tilled the soil there for a few years. Selling out his Florida interests
in 1846, he returned to Georgia, and located some twelve miles south of the
present site of Quitman, in what was then Lowndes county. Clearing a part of his
purchase, here he continued a resident until his death, at the age of
fifty-eight years. He married Rebecca Jones, who was born in Screven county, and
who died in Brooks county a year or two after his death, at the age of sixty
years, her death being resultant from an injury she sustained when thrown from a
carriage. She was the mother of the following children: Andrew, Henry, Martha,
James Berrien, and Hilliard J.

   A boy of ten years when he came with his parents to Brooks county, James
Berrien Finch became familiar with the different branches of agriculture on the
home farm, but as a young man he embarked in mercantile pursuits at Nankin. At
that time Tebeauville, now called Waycross, was the nearest railway station, and
whenever his business called him to New York, where he replenished his stock, he
had to travel by stage to that place, thence by rail to Savannah, where he took
boat for New York City.

   When the alarm of war rang throughout the land, Mr. Finch promptly enlisted
in Company K, Fiftieth Georgia Volunteer Infantry, and as second lieutenant of
his company went to the front, his regiment being assigned to the Army of the
Potomac. He participated in many campaigns, marches and engagements, continuing-
in active service until after the battle of Sharpsburg, where he was hit on the
head by the fragment of a shell, receiving a wound that resulted in his losing
the sight of one eye. Thus disabled, Mr. Finch was not again eligible for active
army service, but he was detailed for conscript work in Georgia, with
headquarters at Quitman. After the close of the war he continued in Quitman,
there opening up a mercantile establishment, and he continued to he actively and
successfully engaged in that enterprise until 1909, when he retired from active
business interests and took his ease as long as he lived.

   Public-spirited and progressive, Mr. Finch was a man who ever manifested the
most intelligent and wholesouled interest in the affairs of the public, and he
was among the foremost in the inauguration of beneficial enterprises. For
fifteen years he served as a member of the village and city council, a part of
that time being president of the board. While he was thus active in the
management of the affairs of the community, the first artesian well was opened,
and the first opera house built, while other improvements of a similar value
were made possible.

   In 1865, Mr. Finch married Mary McCall, who was born in Screven county,
Georgia, and who was a daughter of Francis S. and Ann (Dobson) McCall, of whom a
more extended notice may be found elsewhere in this work. Six children were born
to Mr. and Mrs. Finch, namely: J. L., Frank, George S., Nina A., Rebecca and
Herbert. The first born, now the wife of Dan Boone, married for her first
husband Dr. Will Wood, who at his death left her with one son, Will Wood, Jr.
Frank attended Mercer College for two years and in his twentieth year was
graduated from the University of Georgia. Entering then upon a professional
career, he taught school but four months when he was thrown from a horse and
killed, thus bringing to a sad end what promised to be a life of brilliant
record and achievement. George S. Finch married Berta Griffin, and they have two
children: Le Roy and Nina. Nina A., who married Thomas E. Hampton, has one
child, Mary Lee. Rebecca married E. D. Lambright, and they have one daughter,
Mary Wallace Lambright.



Additional Comments:
From:

A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913

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