James S. Lee, clerk of the County Court of Houston County, was born May 26, 1830, within the present limits of Houston County. He was the youngest, but one, of eight children born to the marriage of John W. Lee and Elizabeth Hawkins, natives of North Carolina. The father was born about 1790. He married the mother in that State, and soon after came to Tennessee, where he followed farming. He was one of the prominent pioneers, and bore the high esteem of the people. His death occurred in 1849, and his mother in 1884, she being in her eighty-sixth year. Our subject was reared on a farm, and had the common school educational advantages, and has acquired his education mainly by his personal application outside of school. He remained with his parents till he married at the age of twenty-five, after whichhis mother lived with him till her death. He taught school in this county two
and a half years, and then engaged in mercantile business at Ashley, Ill., for
one year. He then returned to Tennessee. In 1861 he enlisted in Company I,
Fiftieth Tennessee Volunteers, Confederate States Army, in which he served three months at Fort Donelson, and was discharged because of sickness. He was then a mercantile clerk till 1871, when he was elected to the office he now holds, the only incumbent ever in the office. In 1873-74 he read law, which he now practices. October 13, 1856, he was married to Sarah C. Richardson, a native of this county. Eight children have been born to this union, viz.: Ella, the wife of William Wilson, of Stewart County; Minnie, the wife of E. W. Rauscher, of Erin; James S., Alma, Robert E., Harry, Sallie, and Harrison C., who died at sixteen years of age. The wife died October 1, 1885. She was a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Lee is a member of the Knight Templar Degree, F. & A.M. Politically he is a firm Democrat, and stands high in his party and as a citizen.

Transcribed by Susan Knight Gore

Source: Goodspeed, Weston A, and John Wooldridge. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Montgomery, Robertson, Humphreys, Stewart, Dickson, Cheatham and Houston Counties. Nashville: Goodspeed Pub. Co, 1886.