Mingo County, West Virginia Biography of James R. BROCKUS This file was submitted by Joan Wyatt, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume II, Page 243 James R. Brockus, who is now captain of Company B of the West Virginia State Police, with headquarters in the court house at Williamson, Mingo Co., has the rank of lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserves. His service in the United States Army covered a period of twenty-three years and ten months, and within this long period he was in forty-one different states of the Union and also in seven foreign countries. He passed fourteen months in Alaska, four years on the Mexican border, seven years in the Philippine Islands, besides which he was with the American troops in China at the time of the Boxer uprising, and was in France in the period of the World war. In nearly a quarter of a century of active and efficient service in the United States army Colonel Buckus was in the best physical health, and his entire interval of confinement in hospital did not exceed ten days. He made an admirable record, as shown in the text of his various discharges from the army, in which he promptly enlisted at the expiration of his various terms until his final retirement. He rose in turn through the grades of corporal (second enlistment), sergeant and battalion sergeant major (Boxer rebellion in China). West Virginia is fortunate in having gained this seasoned soldier and sterling citizen as a member and officer of its state police. Colonel Brockus was born at Erwin, Unicoi County, Tennessee, on the 8th of August, 1875, and is the son of William K. and Sarah (Parks) Brockus, the father having been a skilled mechanic and having conducted a shop at Erwin. In the public schools of his native town Colonel Brockus gained his early education, which was supplemented by a course in a business college at Nashville, Tennessee. In 1893 Colonel Brockus enlisted in Company F, Twenty-second United States Infantry, and after spending three years at ForkKeough,Montana, he received an honorable discharge. AtNashville, Tennessee, he soon afterwards re-enlisted, at this time as a member of the Fourteenth United States Infantry. It was within this period of enlistment that he was with his command in Alaska for fourteen months. Later he was in service in the Philippine Islands, whence he went with his command to China at the time of the Boxer rebellion, his second discharge having been received while he was atPekin, China. He then returned to the United States and engaged in the hardware business in his native town. There he lost all of his investments as the result of a fire, and he then enlisted in Company D, Eighteenth United States Infantry, with which he was in service at Fort Bliss, Texas. Later he was in Fort Logan, and next he was assigned with his command to service in the Philippines, his second trip to those islands having been made in 1903. In the Philippines he served with Company D, Fifteenth Infantry, in Mindinao, but he purchased his discharge and rejoined his old command as a member of Company D, Eighteenth Infantry. He returned to the United States on the 15th of November, 1909, and from Camp Whipple Barracks, Arizona, was sent to service on the Mexican border. In connection with the nation's participation in the World war Colonel Brockus was commissioned second lieutenant at Nogales, Arizona, on July 9, 1917, and sent to the Officer's Training School at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, where on August 15th he was commissioned captain and assigned to the Three Hundred and Thirty-first Infantry at Camp Sherman, Ohio. On December 31, 1917, he was advanced to the rank of major and went with the Eighty-third division to France, where the division received final training and equipment for front-line service. After signing of the armistice Major Brockus was transferred to the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Battalion of the Military Police Corps at Laval. He sailed for home June21,1919, and landed at Newport News, Virginia, on the 3rd of the following month. His command was mustered out at Camp Taylor, Kentucky, where he received his final discharge July 24, 1919. He enlisted again, as a first sergeant, and was sent to Fort George Wright, where he remained until May 13, 1920, when he was retired with credit and with the pay of a warrant officer for thirty year's service. After a brief visit to his old home in Tennessee Colonel Brockus joined the West Virginia State Police, August 29, 1920, and was sent to Mingo coal fields, where he has continued in active service except during the recent interval when Federal troops were here in connection with mine troubles. He is now Captain of Company B of the State Police, and during the recent miners invasion he had command of seventy-two state police, including two officers and also eighteen volunteers. He was under fire many times in the Philippines and in the Boxer uprising, but has stated that he heard more hostile bullets during the mine troubles in West Virginia that at any other period of his long military experience. A man and a soldier of fine personality, Colonel Brockus has made many friends within the period of his residence and official service in West Virginia. Colonel Brockus is a member of the American Legion, a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shrine.