Freestone County, Texas
Biographies 



Biography of Rev. James Hill Bounds
   (28 Feb 1823-9 Feb 1913, buried in Wortham cemetery )
   

Book - Biographical Sketches from Limestone, Freestone, and Leon Counties,
Texas.  Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, 1893.  p. 70-71.


REV. JAMES H. BOUNDS, early settler of Limesone County, was born in North 
Carolina in 1823, a son of THOMAS and AGNES (COLE) BOUNDS, natives of North
Carolina.  Originally from England, the family is scattered throughout the
entire country.  The grandfather, JESSE BOUNDS, servedin the Revolution.
THOMAS BOUNDS moved to Tennessee in 1826, ten years later to Pickens County,
Alabama, and to Kemper County, Mississippi.  He died in Rankin County in 
1866, aged seventy-six.  His wife, the nxt year, aged sixty-seven.  They had
eight children: JAMES H., our subject; JESSE, deceased; HULDA J., widow of
Rev. ELKINS; T.D. of Wortham; REUBEN, deceased; PETER M., of Wortham; SINAI,
widow of FRANK LOOPER, and WILLIAM, deceased.

JAMES BOUNDS began work as a farm laborer when he was twenty. He had professed
religion and joined the Methodist Church when he was fifteen, but changed to 
the United Protestant Church when he was twenty-seven. Four years later he
became an itinerant minister, and had followed the profession for 37 years in
various Mississippi counties. He continued it after coming to Texas in 1865.  
In 1843, Rev. Bounds married MARGARETT E. WOOLF, native to Alabama, and 
daughter of JOHN and MARY (STEPHENS) WOOLF, natives of South Carolina.  Of
their 12 children: T. A., J.E., of Navarro County; MARTHA J., widow of JETT
LONGBOTHAM; J. V., of Wortham; SARAH A., widow of Rev. W. ANDREWS; ELISHA L.,
deceased; J.S., an attorney of Hillsboro; MARY M., wife of J.L. LUNDLEY; HULDA
C., wife of V.E. LEE; AMANDA, wife of JOHN MALLARD; WILLIS M., deceased, and
T.W., a physician of Wortham.  Mr. Bounds is one of the pioneer ministers in
his county and very few in the Conference are as old in service as he.