James was born on April 15, 1832, in Liverpool, England, where his father, Daniel James, a native of New York State, was resident partner of the American firm of Phelps, Dodge & Company, dealers in metals. His mother, Elizabeth Woodbridge Phelps, was also an American, a daughter of the head of the same firm. The close contacts of both parents with New York interests naturally resulted in giving the boy a distinctly American outlook and bent, even in an English environment.
Until James was thirteen, he attended English country boarding schools. He was then sent to Edinburgh, where he was a student in an academy for three years and for one year at the University.
While James was in Scotland his mother died, and in 1849, at the age of seventeen, he set out for New York, his father evidently expecting him to enter on a business career there with the help of family connections. Little time was lost in getting to work, and within five years he was admitted as a junior partner in Phelps, Dodge & Company, with which establishment he was connected for the rest of his life. The primary trade was importing metals to America and exporting cotton to the UK. They had subsidiary interests in lumber, property, railroad and manufacturing. By the time the company president, Anson Greene Phelps, died in 1853 James had a 5% share in the business. As the years progressed, this increased until he and his cousin, William E. Dodge, Jr. , were the sole partners. The development of copper mines owned by his firm in Arizona led to the building of branch railroads and other pioneering operations in the Southwest and in Mexico. In these activities he took a leading part. While he was still in his thirties, before he could be counted as a capitalist on a large scale, he was active in philanthropic effort. For half a century of his life in New York there was never a time when his personal contributions to religious and charitable causes were not far greater than was known to the public. Enough has come to light, however, in the records and reports of organizations to show that the sum total of the gifts that he made in his lifetime, if it could be computed, would place him in a high rank among the philanthropists of his generation. Those who knew James well seem agreed that his affections were spontaneous and all-inclusive. It was only natural that a man of such impulses should find on every side new channels of benevolence. The Children's Aid Society of New York, founded by Charles Loring Brace, appealed with peculiar force to James and throughout his life continued to claim his interest and support. He was a trustee for thirty-nine years and president for ten. His gifts to the society from 1868 to 1907 were continuous. It was James who founded the Health Home of the society at Coney Island for the mothers of sick children. Many who never so much as heard his name have been helped back to health and strength by that institution. While his son was a student at Amherst College the elder James was elected a trustee of that institution and served as such during some of his busiest years. He was also on the governing board of the American Museum of Natural History. He gave close attention to the problems of every board in which he held membership. Since 1867 James had been a director of the Union Theological Seminary in New York, and when it seemed necessary for the seminary to acquire a new site he spent months in studying New York real estate. Finding at last a suitable tract, he bought it and offered it anonymously, without conditions, to the seminary.
In 1854 James married Ellen Stebbins Curtiss, of New York. She, with a son, survived him.
He was one of the three founder partners of Phelps, Dodge & Co., a New York trading organisation established in 1833/4, exporting cotton to England and importing manufactured goods in return such as tin, tin plate, iron and copper.
He was a wealthy speculator in copper mines and railroads.
He was an American businessperson and philanthropist. For many years, he was one of two controlling partners in the Phelps Dodge Corporation, one of the largest copper mining corporations in the United States.
