Background
James was born on March 29, 1831, in Utica, New York, the son of William and Jane Maria (Price) James, both of whose grandparents were emigrants from Wales.
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James was born on March 29, 1831, in Utica, New York, the son of William and Jane Maria (Price) James, both of whose grandparents were emigrants from Wales.
Though in mature life James attained several honorary degrees, he had no formal education beyond the common school and a short term at the Utica Academy.
James began his career in the shop of the Utica Liberty Press. By 1851 he was an owner of the paper, and that year he bought the Madison County Journal, a Whig newspaper of Hamilton, New York, which he merged, five years later, with another Whig journal, the Democratic-Reflector, and published until 1861 as the Democratic-Republican.
In 1854-1855 he was collector of tolls at Hamilton on the Erie Canal, and from 1861 to 1864 was inspector of customs for the port of New York. For six years, beginning in 1864, he occupied the office of weigher, and from 1870 to 1873 he was deputy collector for the port. In this position James made a reputation for thoroughness and dispatch, and Chester A. Arthur, then collector, made him chairman of the Civil Service Board of the collector's and suveyor's offices. James's greatest achievements, however, were to be in the postal service.
In 1873 Grant appointed him postmaster of New York. He held office eight years, for President Hayes reappointed him in 1877. Hayes would have made him postmaster-general that year, but James refused the honor. His work in the New York post-office was engrossing him. He eliminated the lax methods of his predecessor, a typical easy-going Irish politician, and strove to make merit, not influence, the criterion for the personnel. His success was such that the New York post-office became a model of efficiency, and European countries sent delegations to study it. In 1880 James declined another invitation from President Hayes to become postmaster general, but the next year, when Garfield was elected, he was again offered the place and accepted it. He plunged into his new work with his customary zeal, and in cooperation with the attorney general put an end to the so-called Star-Route frauds. He succeeded in eliminating an annual deficit of two million dollars and thus made possible the reduction of letter postage from three to two cents. His term, however, lasted only ten months, for after Garfield's assassination, he resigned, and on January 4, 1882, retired permanently from public life.
In 1885 James moved to Tenafly, New Jersey, but some years later again returned to his native state. At the time of his death, which occured on September 11, 1916, he was chairman of the board of directors of the Lincoln National Bank, which office he had held since 1882. He was also a director of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and a vestryman of the Church of Heavenly Rest, from which he was buried. He contributed an article on "The Railway Mail Service" to Scribner's Magazine (March 1889), which was printed also in pamphlet form and in The American Railway (1889) by T. C. Clarke, John Bogart and others. A lecture, The Postal Service of the United States, delivered at Union College, Schenectady, was published in 1895, and the same year he contributed an article to C. M. Depew's One Hundred Years of American Commerce. He was also the author of a curious article in which he maintained not only that America was discovered by Prince Madoc of Wales in 1170 A. D. , but that many of the primitive American red men were perfectly conversant with the Welsh tongue.
James served as chairman of the board of directors of the Lincoln National Bank (1882-1916) and director of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
James was married four times. His first wife was Emily Ida Freeburn, a niece of Thurlow Weed; his second wife was her sister, the widow of Dr. E. R. Borden, of Aiken, South Carolina. He married, third, Edith Colbourne, daughter of a hotelkeeper of Stratford-on-Avon; and fourth, Mrs. Florence (MacDonnell) Gaffney, who survived him.