Biography:  JAMES SPEARS BOURLAND of Itawamba & Monroe Counties, 
Mississippi

Compiled for USGenweb Project by Marie Evans Davis <reeevans@gulftel.net>
Note:  This e-mail address not working in August 2002.

************************************************************************
USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE:  These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced 
in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or
persons.  Persons or organizations desiring to use this material,
must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal
representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb
archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission
to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access.
************************************************************************


1. JAMES SPEARS2 BOURLAND (EBENEZER J.1) was born October 19, 1798 in 
Pendleton District, South Carolina, and died November 10, 1877 in Itawamba 
County, Mississippi. He married MARY HUDSPETH September 26, 1818 in 
Hopkins County Kentucky, daughter of CHARLES HUDSPETH and ELIZABETH GLENN.

James Spears Bourland is said to have been known by his contemporaries in 
Monroe County and in Itawamba County, Mississippi as Judge Bourland. He 
was the third son of Ebenezer Bourland and Abigail Loving, daughter of 
Gabriel Loving and sister to Mary Loving who had married John Bourland, 
Jr. who was born about 1768 in Virginia. Ebenezer Bourland was the son of 
John Bourland.

Mary Hudspeth was the daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Glenn Hudspeth. 
The records indicate that as newlyweds, James and Mary accompanied 
Charles Hudspeth Sr., and his family and James Ederington, his sons and 
their families to "the wilds of Mississippi" to the vicinty of the town 
of Cotton Gin Port in the year 1819.

Cotton Gin Port had its beginnings in the late 1700's and early 1800's. 
It was built on the site of a long-time Indian settlement and an old 
French fort. It was recognized as an organized town with an area of 107 
acres in 1828. Cotton Gin Port was the commercial center of North 
Mississipppi and Albama from 1820 until after the Civil War. It was 
enjoying the peak of prosperity in 1848 until the Civil War broke out 
in 1861.

In 1885, the Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham Railroad staked out its 
right-of-way across the area and missed Cotton Gin Port entirely. A new 
town, Amory, was founded on the railroad and the residents of Cotton Gin 
Port, realizing that the railroad would take trade away from the river, 
made a wholesale exodus to the new town. All the business people of 
Cotton Gin Port, along with most of the other citizens, moved to Amory. 
Some moved their business houses, rolling them over to the new town on 
logs, while others took the buildings down and rebuilt them in Amory. 
The river has returned as a shipping lane by the completion of the 
Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. 

On March 26, 1826, Brice M. Garner of Lincoln County, Tennessee sold 
James Spears Bourland lot number 5 and lot number 6 in Section 26, 
Township 12 South, Range 19 West - 160 acres of land that is located 
at the site of the present-day City of Amory. James Spears Bourland is 
listed as the head of a household in Monroe County, Mississippi in both 
the United States Census of 1820 and United States Census of 1830. 

Records indicate that James Spears Bourland took an active part in the 
cession of the Chickasaw Indian county in North Mississippi to the 
United States of America in 1832 and 1834. He spent a part of his time 
during the years of 1836 and 1837 in the town of Pontotoc, in which 
place the United States Government had placed the land office for the 
area ceded by the Treaty of Pontotoc in 1832. 

Upon this opening of the Chickasaw cession lands to settlement by white 
people, James Spears Bourland established his homestead in the south 
part of Itawamba County, Mississippi near the community of Cardsville. 
He was the president of the first Board of Police (Board of Supervisors) 
that organized Itawamba County, Mississippi in the year 1836. 

Sources: The Amory Advertiser, March 29, 1984, Aberdeen (Mississipppi) 
Examiner, October 12, 1967, The Bourlands in America, Carl and May Reed, 
History of Monroe County Mississippi