Ancestors

Judge James Colville

James Colville was born in 1767 in Frederick County, Virginia, near Winchester. The History of Knox County, published in 1881, gives his life in one paragraph: "COLVILLE, JAMES, was born in Frederick county, near Winchester, Virginia, in 1767. In 1803 he came to Knox county, Ohio, and settled on a farm in Pleasant township ... His log cabin was built as early as 1805. November 27, 1806, he married Miss Mary Jackson, who was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, October 3, 1781. He aided in surveying the Military lands in Knox county. He was one of the associate judges of the county in 1808. Mr. Colville died February 7, 1837, aged seventy years, and Mrs. Colville on the seventeenth day of May, 1851, also aged seventy years."

He was the first settler of Pleasant Township. Knox County lies in the United States Military District of Ohio, land the federal government set aside to pay the bounty warrants of Revolutionary War veterans. It had to be surveyed into tracts before it could be claimed, and James helped with that survey.

In the fall of 1806 he went back to Washington County, Pennsylvania, to marry. His bride, Mary, was the daughter of James and Nancy Jackson. They had eight children: Martha, Joseph, Nancy, James, John, Thomas, Robert M. and Mary J. Thomas, born in 1818, later took over the home farm.

In the early Ohio courts, associate judges were local men who sat beside the presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas. The 1881 history puts James on that bench in 1808. An earlier history of Knox County, by Norton in 1862, gives the date of his commission as 30 April 1810, "in place of Gass."

The first school in Pleasant Township was taught in a log cabin on his farm in 1825. James Colville died on 7 February 1837. Mary died on 17 May 1851. The histories do not name his parents.

If Judge James Colville is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Judge James Colville (1767-1837)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/judge-james-colville-1767-1837-f75de9.