EDWIN JAMES 
275 
Doctor James was appointed agent to the Osage Indians at 
Council Bluifd There he remained only a few months when he 
went back to Albany, where for several years, with one E. C. 
Delevan, he conducted and published a temperence journal. 
In 1824, Doctor James was married to Clarissa Rogers, of 
Glouchester, Massachusetts. Soon after this event he was ap¬ 
pointed a surgeon in the United States Army and was detailed 
first at Fort Crawford, near the present city of Prairie du Chien, 
Wisconsin; and afterwards at Mackinac, Michigan. Finally, 
resigning his post in the Army, he removed, in 1836, to Rock 
Springs, near Burlington, Iowa, where he homesteaded 320 acres 
of farm land. 
He devoted the remainder of his life to agricultural pursuits. 
As Dr. Perry observes: It was about this time that some peculiar 
traits which distinguished Doctor James as a strange man, be¬ 
came conspicuous. His mode of life, his opinions, and his views 
on moral and religious questions generally were inclined to 
ultraism. Failing to find earnest sympathy among those with 
whom he was thrown in contact, he gradually assumed the habits 
of a recluse. Indifferent always to public opinion, he marked out 
and pursued his own course without regard to the views of others. 
Strictly honorable in all of his dealings with mankind, and 
naturally kindhearted, he did not care to waste his sympathy where 
it would not be appreciated. With him to espouse a cause was 
to carry it to the farthest possible extremes. In full justice, 
however, to his many amiable traits of character it must be ad¬ 
mitted that his errors were on the side of goodness, and in all his 
waywardness he never forfited his self respect, or the attachment 
of those who had known him in early life. 
He died at Rock Springs on October 28, 1861. 
Notwithstanding the fact that by the present generation his 
geologic descriptions are often not easily interpreted in their 
somewhat archaic garb James was in reality in the very forefront 
of his times. Dispite his strong Wernerian predilections gained 
from his close contact with his master and William McClure, 
nestor of Werner ism in America, James^ early training in botany 
and his intimate association with the zoologist Thomas Say, led 
1 Council Bluff was a Lewis and Clark Indian station several miles above the 
present site of Omaha, and on the west side of the Missouri River. Council Bluffs, 
Iowa, on the east side of river was a later settlement. 
