CAPT. JAMES A. WARDER, a leading member of the Bedford County bar, was born September 24, 1843, at May’s Lick, Ky. His father, Walter Warder, was a native of Kentucky, and was an eminent physician of that State. He died when James A. was but about thirteen years of age. The mother now lives in her native State, Kentucky. Capt. Warder was reared near Maysville, Ky., and received his education at Maysville and at Centre College, Kentucky. When eighteen years of age, in 1861, he enlisted in Company L, Second Kentucky Cavalry, as a private. He was subsequently made first lieutenant of the company and afterward was made captain of Company C, of the same regiment. He held that commission till the close of the war, actively serving in most all the important battles throughout the southwest.
Returning from the war he read law, and in October, 1866, was licensed to practice, since which time he has been successfully engaged in that profession, ranking among the ablest lawyers of the State. In 1867 he was commissioned attorney-general of a judicial district, but declined the nomination. He was on the Hayes electoral ticket in 1876, and under the administration of Hayes held the office of United States district attorney. He was nominated by his party for the congressional race in 1884, but the Democratic party being largely in the majority he was not elected, he being a Republican and one of the leading men in his party in this part of the State.
He was married, January 2, 1865, to Laura D. Gosling, a daughter of William Gosling, a manufacturer in Shelbyville. Two children have been born to this union, one of whom, Inda Artus, is now living. Mrs. Warder is a member of the Episcopal Church. Capt. Warder’s name has frequently been connected with all the important offices of the State. A wide-spread desire existed to nominate him for the Republican candidate for governor, but owing to the time necessarily required from his profession to make the race against so great a Democratic majority, he discouraged the movement. Just now he is being instructed for, by a number of counties, for one of the supreme judges of the State.
Transcribed by Kathryn Hopkins
Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford & Marshall Counties, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Reminescences [Sic], Observations, Etc., Etc. Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1988.