BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

James Henry Duncan

JAMES HENRY DUNCAN; Calhoun county, Was born in Milledgeville, Baldwin county, Georgia, on the 20th day of July, 1827.  His father, Henry Duncan, removed to Aberdeen, Mississippi, in October, 1835, and thence to Pontotoc county, Mississippi, in 1838, where he died in the year 1840, leaving the subject of this notice to work his way through this world, at the early age of thirteen years, with his widowed mother, penniless, and dependent alone upon his exertions, or those equally destitute with himself.  In the month of June, 1847, he came to Texas, where he has remained ever since.  In 1857, he settled in the town of Indianola, in Calhoun county.  His original occupation was that of a farmer.  He was for several years a clerk in the Commissary Department of the United States.  Since 1844, he has followed the business of a general trader.  He has not married up to the time of writing this sketch, February, 1860.  He has been honorable in his transactions; is a warm hearted friend; and a nobler hearted man has never been elected to any legislative body.  As a politician, he has always been a conservative man.  At the solicitation of many friends of both parties, he consented, in the month of July last, to become a candidate for the Legislature of Texas, and was elected by an overwhelming majority on the first Monday in August, a Representative of the counties of Calhoun and Jackson in the Eighth Legislature of the State.  He bids fair to make his mark.  

Source: Transcription from the book, The Texas Album of the Eighth Legislature, published in 1860; located on the website, Texas Digital Archive (https://tsl.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_3cbdb1ce-309b-40bb-a0b2-3fe11fd1728b/), accessed on 28 February 2024.