Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Biographies of Members of the House of Representatives of the Forty-Third Congress
James was permitted to attend the district school a few months of each year, and at intervals aided in supporting the family by working at the carpenter's trade. This not proving very remunerative, in his seventeenth year he secured employment as driver on the tow-path oi the Ohio Canal, and soon rose to be a boatman. The dream of his ambition was to become a Sailor on the lakes. The hardship and exposure incident to his life on the Canal brought on the fever and ague in the fall of 1848. When the young boatman had recovered from a three months' illness, it was too late to carry out his purpose of shipping on the lakes. He was persuaded to defer this step until the following fall, and meanwhile to spend a few months in attending a high-school in an adjoining county.
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