James Jefferson O'Quinn, Angeline Co., TX., then Grant Parish, Louisiana
Submitted to USGENWEB by Mike Miller


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James Jefferson O'Quinn has rounded out nearly a quarter of a century of important public
service in the Parish of Grant.  On June 5, 1900, he took charge of the parish clerk's office, and
served continuously twenty years.  In 1920 he was elected parish assessor, and during the year
before inaugurated in that office, he acted as agent for the Louisiana Railway & Navigation
Company at Colfax.  He resigned the office of assessor in 1924 to become sheriff.  Mr. O'Quinn
was a member of the building committee, when in 1902 the courthouse was erected at Colfax. 
Mr. O'Quinn is a man of unusual accomplishments, skill and ability.  His ambition was the
source of much of his knowledge, and he was also taught by experience and necessity.  He has in
his the played many parts efficiently.  Even today, as a result of his early training, he can send a
message by telegraph and operate a locomotive engine and can perform the services of an expert
stenographer in taking a complicated case in court.

He was born near Lufkin, Angeline County, Texas, June 17, 1872, son of James Jefferson and
Margaret (Lang) O'Quinn.  Just a few weeks before his birth his father O'Quinn died, the
grandfather having come from Ireland.  Margaret Lang was the daughter of William Gordon
Lang, a civil engineer who was born and educated in England, and for services to the state of
Texas in pioneer times, received a headright, and acquired a large amount of other hand in
eastern Texas.  He made many surveys in that state, laying off the town of Angelina, and also
acted as county surveyor.  Mrs. Margaret O'Quinn is now seventy-two years of age and lives with
her daughter at Lufkin.  There are two children, the daughter, Miami, being the wife of S. J.
Singleton, and the son, James Jefferson O'Quinn.

James Jefferson O'Quinn completed the equivalent of a high school education, and for six
months taught school and subsequently took several correspondence courses.  As a boy he
worked on the farm for his mother, also worked in the timber and around the saw mills, and
learned the duties of fireman and engineer on a logging locomotive.  He also taught himself the
art of telegraphy, buying an instrument for practice.  While running an engine, his leg was
crushed in an accident, and on recovering he took up telegraphy and station work, being assigned
duties in a number of places along the lines of the Southern Pacific, Texas & Pacific, and Iron
Mountain Railways, being at Nona, Texas, Plaquemine, Louisiana, and also at Little Rock,
Arkansas, in the dispatcher's office.  When the Gould interests were operating a sawmill at
Pollock, Louisiana, he was assigned duty there in the company's store.  From that he went to the
Nugent Company as manager of the store at Sand Spur.  Colonel Swords Lee and Mr. Nugent
proposed that he sign for election as parish clerk. and he was chosen on the democratic ticket in
1899.  Mr. O'Quinn is a high class accountant, and as a stenographer has been given special
assignments as court reporter in a number of difficult cases.

He married Miss Lida Taquino of Plaquemine.  They have a family of three sons and five
daughters.  Mr. O'Quinn is a member of the Catholic faith, and Mrs. O'Quinn is a Baptist.  He
joined the Masonic Lodge at Pollock, and is a member of the Knights Templar Commandery at
Alexandria.  For a number of years he was associated with the Big Pine Lumber Company until
its timber was cut.  In all his twenty-four years of public service for Grant Parish, he has had
only thirty days' vacation.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 377, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by The American
Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.