James, Thomas 1592-1678
Clergyman; born in England in 1592; graduated at Cambridge in 1614; emigrated to the United States in 1632, where he became the first pastor of the church in Charlestown, Mass. In consequence of dissension he removed to New Haven and subsequently to Virginia, but was obliged to leave Virginia as he refused to conform to the English Church. He returned to New England in 1643, but went back to England, where he became pastor of a church in Needham till 1662, when he was removed for non-conformity after the accession of Charles II. He died in England in 1678.
Navigator; born in England about 1590. In 1631 he was sent out by an association at Bristol to search for a northwest passage. With twenty-one men, in the ship Henrietta Maria (named in honor of the Queen), he sailed May 3. On June 29 he spoke the ship of Capt. Luke Fox, who had been sent on the same errand by the King, and furnished with a letter to the Emperor of Japan, if he should find that country. Neither James nor Fox discovered the coveted “passage,” but the former made valuable discoveries in Hudson Bay. James was a man of science, and in his Journal [119] he recorded his observations on rarities he had discovered, “both philosophicall and mathematicall.” James and his crew suffered terribly, for they passed a winter in those high latitudes, and returned in 1632. In the following year he published The strange and dangerous voyage of Capt. Thomas James for the discovery of a Northwest passage to the South sea.
Journalist; born in Utica, N. Y., March 29, 1831; proprietor of the Madison county journal, published at Hamilton, N. Y., 1851-61; took an active interest in politics, serving the State and nation in various capacities; was appointed postmaster of New York City in 1873; Postmaster-General, March 6, 1881; and resigned in 1882, when he organized and became president of the Lincoln National Bank, New York City.
