Major James Huston, Jr.
Major James Huston, Jr., farmer and teacher, the oldest of twelve children, was born of Irish parentage, November 20, 1819, in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania. The parents, Paul and Mary (Carruthers) Huston, moved to Hamilton county in 1823, where they lived seven years; and thence to Logan county, Ohio. James Huston received a good frontier education in the schools of that day, and received a careful training at home. In 1837 he came to Hamilton county and found work on a farm, and in 1838 taught school one year in Warren county. In 1840 he went to New Orleans but returned to Ohio via Lebanon, Tennessee, where he taught school for six months and in 1841, resumed work in the schoolroom in Hamilton county, where he remained in that profession until 1850, when he went to California, by way of Panama, and where he remained digging in the mines until 1852. When he returned he came to Hamilton, and again taught school. At the breaking out of the war he entered the service as captain of company I, in the One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Ohio volunteer infantry. In 1861, he was elected member of the Ohio legislature and reelected in 1863. In 1870 he was appointed assistant in the county treasurer's office, and, since 1865, has devoted himself to farming in Sycamore township. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity.
From History of Hamilton County, Ohio, Henry & Kate Ford, L. A. Williams & Co., Publishers, 1881