BIO: May, James G. Prof - Lincoln Co 

"HISTORY OF LAWRENCE, ORANGE & WASHINGTON COUNTIES INDIANA"  GOODSPEED BROS.
1884

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, WASHINGTON COUNTY.

PAGE 868

PROF. JAMES G. MAY, born at Lincoln County, Ky., April 21, 1805, is the
eldest of nine children, two brothers and two sisters yet living, born to
Jacob and Eleanor (McDonald) May.  The May family history is briefly this:
in the year 1700 a crowd of students of colleges and universities of a
portion of Germany, heated by the drinking of crambambuli, a German drink,
uttered treasonable sentences against the crowned heads and potentates of
their native country, and threatened to deprive them of their kingly power.
George May, great-grandfather of James G., the subject of this sketch,
together with his brother John, and thirteen others, escaped arrest, and in
sailor's disguise took passage for America, landing at Philadelphia in 1701.
John May's descendants settled in North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia,
afterward spreading to Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.  George May was the
father of seven sons and two daughters, and Jacob, grandfather of James G.,
was the oldest.  George died at Philadelphia.  Jacob settled in Maryland,
near Baltimore, and there Jacob, James G.'s father, was born.  Jacob, the
second, settled in Kentucky in 1783, at the age of ten years, with his
parents.  He came to Indiana in 1825, and died at Martinsburg, in Washington
County in 1852.  William McDonald, grandfather of James G. May, was born in
Philadelphia, and his parents were natives of Scotland.  He served seven
years in the Revolutionary war, married a Miss Bell in North Carolina, she
being a near relative of John Bell, who was a candidate for the Presidency
in 1860.  James G. May never remembered when he learned his letters.  At six
years of age he read sufficiently well to peruse the Bible, unaided.  From
the time he was four years old he has always been a student, and he
contracted his fondness for study at the home of his childhood, where
studying was always the order of the hour.  When fourteen years old he
entered Morrison's Academy and there acquired an extensive knowledge of the
sciences.  Not possessing the means necessary to take a collegiate course,he
began teaching at sixteen years in his father's family, and working on the
farm, at the same time pursuing privately the course his academy classmate
was taking at Center College, at Danville.  In ten years he mastered the
courses, without one day's attendance at college, and in 1823 taught his
first term of subscription school.  In November, 1824, he came to Indiana,
and that winter taught school in Brown Township, Washington County.  In
1825, he began reading law privately.  The greater part of his life has been
passed teaching school, 6,308 days in Washington County, 1.080 days in
Decatur County, Ind., 1.035 days in the Harrison County Seminary, 1,170 days
in New Albany as Superintendent and general instructor, 308 days scattering
, making a total of 10,801 days passed in the school-room.  It is not
necessary to add that Prof. May has made school teaching a success.  In 1838
he was admitted to practice law at Rushville, Ind., and for five years, with
but little else, he was located at Salem, successfully engaged in legal
pursuits.  From December, 1832, to November, 1834, he was editor of the
"Western Annotator", at Salem.  He was a Jacksonian in politics up to 1833
when his views changed on the question of banking, and in 1834 he wrote the
first article recommending William Henry Harrison for the Presidency.  In
1856 he became a Republican which he has remained to the present time, and
during the bitter struggle between the North and the South he was ever found
a warm supporter of the Union, of Lincoln's administration, and often was
threatened all manner of violence for his outspoken and radical stand in
favor of the Union.  March 5, 1829, he married Nancy,daughter of Benoni and
Elizabeth (McCoskey) Armstrong, and seven children were born to their union:
William W., Sarah E. (deceased), Maria L. (deceased), Mary D. W., Ben A.,
Gertrude and James D. (deceased).  Those living are all married.  Prof. May
and wife are members of long standing in the Presbyterian Church.


Transcribed by: Diana Flynn 
<ivie@tima.com>
Date: Tue, 6 August 1997