Biographies L
James Wilson Lam
James Wilson Lam was born in Muhlenberg County June 23, 1851. His father, Elijah Lam, was born in Tennessee in 1822, and his mother, Martha Cates, was born in North Carolina in 1818. His parents were married in Tennessee in 1842, removed to Muhlenberg in 1850, and settled on a farm near Hillside. J.W. Lam is one of their six children.
In 1874, Mr. Lam married Nancy Eades, daughter of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Eades. Their two children are Mrs. Eula Margaret (Charles W.) Roark and Mrs. Mayme Elizabeth (Hubert) Meredith.
Mr. Lam was in the mercantile business until 1891, when he entered the coal-mining business and opened Hillside Mine. In 1895 he opened Oakland Mine, within two hundred yards of the place of his birth. He has operated these two mines continuously from the time they were opened, and has mined coal from under the ground on which stood the house in which he was born. He has been identified with various coal-mining interests in the county, and is at present engaged in operating Hillside, Oakland, Morgan, and Dovey mines. He moved to Greenville in 1885.
In 1901 he helped organize the Muhlenberg County Savings Bank, Greenville, and has served as its president since 1903. He has been for more than twenty-five years one of the most public-spirited citizens of the county.
Unlike many self-made men, he is very liberal. Through his personal efforts and his financial contributions he has done much toward the material improvement and the moral uplift of Muhlenberg County in general and of Greenville in particular. He has erected more modern business houses there than any other citizen. He began his first term as mayor of the town in 1905, and is now serving his second term.
Source: Rothert, Otto A. “A History of Muhlenberg County.” Louisville, KY: John P. Morton, 1913. Page 402
Updated July 9, 2018