IVES, Charles John, of Cedar Rapids, president of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern railroad, was born in Wallingford, Rutland county, Vt., October 4, 1831, and is descended from honored New England ancestry, connected with the history of that section of the country almost from the beginning.  The founder of the family in America sailed from England, on the Truelove, and landed at Boston, Mass., on the 19th of September, 1635. Our subject is numbered among his direct lineal descendants. His son, Joseph Ives, married Esther Benedict, and became the father of Nathaniel Ives, whose wife bore the maiden name of Mehitable Andrews. Their son, Lent Ives, was the grandfather of our subject, and married Mary Mighell. The father of our subject, John Ives, was born in Wallingford, Vt., and by occupation was a farmer and merchant. In 1847 he came to the west, locating in Lee county, Iowa; he died at the age of 63 years. His wife, who descended from New England ancestors, bore the maiden name of Lucretia Johnson. 

Mr. Ives, whose name introduces this sketch, may well be called a self-educated man, for his school privileges were somewhat limited, and in the school of experience he has learned more valuable les-sons than the common institutions of learning ever afforded him. He attended the public schools of his native county, and for a short time was a student in the academy at Poultney, Vt. This ended his school life, but an observing eye and retentive memory and sound judgment have made him a well-informed man.

Till 1847 he worked on his father's farm, in Vermont. Then in Lee county, Iowa, for several years, on a farm which his father had purchased and upon which the family had settled. He then delved in the mining regions for several years, near Pike's Peak, Colo. He does not seem to have gathered much wealth, however, and on the 1st of October, 1862, he became connected with railroading as a clerk of the Burlington & Missouri River railroad, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa. On the 15th of January, 1864, he was appointed clerk in the local office in Burlington, Iowa, and from January, 1867, until July, 1870, was clerk in the general freight office in that city.

Since the latter date he has been continuously connected with what is now the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern railroad, but at the time when he allied his interest with it, it was called the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Minnesota road. During the first year he was general freight agent of the first division, and from 1871 until October 15, 1874, served as general passenger and ticket agent. On the 15th of October his duties were further increased by an appointment as general freight agent, and he served in that capacity, as well as others, until October 28, 1875, when he was made acting superintendent and general freight, passenger and ticket agent. From November 26, 1875, until November 28, 1879, he was superintendent and general freight, passenger and ticket agent; and from the latter date until June 14, 1884, he was general superintendent. He was then president and general superintendent until June, 1893, and since that time he has been president of the road. His advancement has been steady and continuous.  The growth of the road with which he has been connected so long, has been largely accomplished through his progressive efforts. When he became connected with the Burlington & Missouri River railroad, its western terminus was at Ottumwa, Iowa; now the state is crossed and re-crossed by a perfect network of railroads, facilitating commerce, introducing all the improvements known to the east, and advancing the state with a rapidity that is known only to western districts.  The road of which Mr. Ives is now president was only forty miles in length when he first became identified with it Now its aggregate length is 1,150 miles, and it justly ranks among the most important business institutions of Iowa. He rode upon the first train of steam cars that made a trip in this state. His own progress has been proportionate to that of the road, and the farm boy of forty years ago is today at the head of a concern whose importance in the world of commerce cannot be estimated.  While promoting in all possible ways the interests of the railroad company, Mr.  Ives has also aided materially in the prosperity of Cedar Rapids, by his connection with various enterprises there. He was for some time president of the Cedar Rapids Electric Light company, but resigned that position in January, 1893, owing to the press of other duties. His capital has been judiciously invested and he has become the possessor of a handsome property. He is purely a business man, practical, energetic and capable, with a mind to plan and a will to execute. 

In 1854 Mr. Ives was united in marriage with Miss Ellen M. Dale, of Wallingford, Vt., and six children were born to them.  A son and daughter are living with and near him. The mother died April 16, 1895.  Personally Mr. Ives is courteous and affable, a gentleman in the truest and best sense of that term; and while his career excites the admiration, it also commands the respect of all.

KILBORN, William Franklin. The history of the Kilborn family gives abundant proof that their name, in its varied orthography, is prominent among those whose ancestry can be traced hundreds of years. This name has long been associated with the history of England. It is mentioned in the rolls of Scotland, preserved in the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, as early as 1336, and is also mentioned by such noted English writers as Halsted and Brayley, who speak of the Kilborns being "seated" at Kilborn, in Yorkshire, afterwards settling in Cambridgeshire and Essex. "Seated," as used by English historians, signifies that the family heritage was located at the place mentioned. The occasion of the grant of arms to the Kilborn family is unknown, but history states: " This pedigree being authentically proved, is entered in the visitation of London, A. D. 1634.-Hon. St George Richmond."

The family motto is, " Vincit Veritas. " From Thomas Kilbourn, who left Cambridgeshire, England, in 1636 to locate with his family at Wethersfield, Conn., have Descended all Americans bearing this name. The Kilbourns are well represented in Canada, Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio.  Payne Kenyon Kilbourn, of Litchfield, Conn., is among the prominent members of the family. He is author of the "History of the Kilbourn Family," a work dedicated to Hon. Byron Kilbourn, president of the Kilbourn Historical and Genealogical society, of Milwaukee, Wis., and for whom Kilbourn City, Wis., is named.  Captain Whiting Kilborn, a Canadian settler, had a large family of sons and daughters, of whom Jared and David were noted pioneer preachers of the Methodist church.  David Kilborn married Lavina Bowers, daughter of Samuel Bowers, a land owner and manufacturer of Berlin, Ontario. Their second son, William Franklin, was born July 19, 1854, at Washington, Ontario, where his parents lived until he was two years old, when they moved to Plattsville, Ontario, where his father engaged in a successful mercantile and manufacturing business. David Kilborn moved with his family in 1864 upon a farm near Grand Rapids, Mich., where Frank's time was divided between school and farm work.

In 1873, at the age of 19, Frank Kilborn came to Cedar Rapids to continue his education.  He secured a position in the photograph gallery of his uncle, Wilber F. Kilborn, where his artistic ability, industry and perseverance, with constant study, enabled him to become most proficient. In 1878 he purchased a half interest in the firm of W.  F. Kilborn & Co., and became sole owner in 1886. Kilborn's gallery, the oldest in Iowa, has been constantly improved and enlarged until now it is one of the art Centers of the west. Through constant application and study under competent instructors, Mr. Kilborn has been eminently successful in his work. His practical turn of mind led him to study chemistry, and his experiments resulted in the manufacture of a paper for photographers' use which was put upon the market in 1891 by the Western Collodion Paper company. This K. K. paper proved very satisfactory, and in 1894 the Eastman Kodak company, of Rochester, N. Y., negotiated for the plant.  Messrs. Kilborn & Co. went to New York to establish the plant at Rochester, where Mr. Kilborn had charge of the business for one year, when he returned to Cedar Rapids. He then added a photographic supply department to his business. His chemical experiments during the last two years have resulted in the manufacture of other satisfactory papers. The products of the Kilborn company are fast becoming leading brands. Mr. Kilborn's great success lies in his continual personal supervision of every branch of his work. He is not only one of the leading men in his chosen profession but is also a man of influence in constantly widening circles.

Mr.  Kilborn was married at Lancaster, Ohio, September 4, 1884, to Miss Mary Carty, daughter of William J. and Ellen Carpenter Carty. Mrs. Kilborn is a lady of culture and refinement and an active worker in the church, social and literary life of Cedar Rapids. Mr. and Mrs Kilborn have two children: Mary Ellen, born July 28, 1885, and Paul Franklin, born June 17, 1897.  Kilborn Place, with its spacious lawn, winding walks and drive among forest trees, is one of the most beautiful homes in Cedar Rapids.

LEONARD, John Calvin, attorney of Cedar Rapids, was born in that city, October 18, 1855. He is the son of Rev. George E. W. Leonard, the pioneer Presbyterian minister of that city, who was known and highly esteemed by all the old settlers.  Rev. Mr. Leonard was married March 20, 1854, to Miss Rezilda Crowe, of Columbia county, N. Y., and soon after came west and bought a tract of 120 acres of land which now lies within the city limits of Cedar Rapids and is very valuable. His father was Charles Leonard, a New England farmer of German descent, who located in New Jersey. John C. Leonard is the oldest of seven children; Emma, is the wife of John Stuckslager, a farmer in Sioux county, Iowa; William C., is living in Rock Valley, Sioux county, and is practicing the profession of law; Mary R., a girl of rare intellectual ability, and before whom lay the brightest prospects of a happy future, died in her 22d year, laying down her life with a cheerful resignation to the Divine will; Dora B., now Mrs. A.  W. Bowman, residing at Omaha, was a graduate of the high school of Marion; Martha A., now Mrs. Dr. J. M. Aiken, of Omaha, was educated at Coe college; George E. graduated at Ann Arbor Law school and is now practicing in Chicago. 

When John C. Leonard was a boy Cedar Rapids was but a country village. His father's farm, now covered by a portion of the city, was one of the most fertile and productive in the township. Upon this farm John worked during the summer, and during the winter months attended school.  June 13, 1873, he graduated at the city high school, and during the next two years attended Cornell college at Mt. Vernon.  After leaving college he read law for two years with Messrs. Hubbard & Clark, then the attorneys of the Northwestern Railway company, and in 1877 was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law at Cedar Rapids. In June, 1879, he was admitted to practice before the supreme court. Mr. Leonard's practice has been mostly railroad litigation, either for or against the various railway corporations operating in this state. For the last fifteen years he has been attorney for the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Railway company. He was born and brought up a republican, but takes no part in politics. He is not a member of any society, club or church, but is a man of decidedly independent turn of mind; does not consider himself any better than the average man and not as good as many, but has never drank a glass of intoxicating liquor or used tobacco in any form. He has four children: Mary B., born October 10, 1881; Nathan B., born November 29, 1883; John C., born May 8, 1891, and Thecla C., born August 23, 1892.

LINCOLN, George Allen, for three terms mayor of Cedar Rapids, is a familiar figure in republican state conventions and has occupied a prominent position in the councils of the republican party in Iowa for many years He was born in Chicopee, Mass., January 31, 1848, and was the son of George D. and Mary E. Lincoln. With his parents he went to Madison, Wis., in 1858, and when the war broke out he enlisted in the Third Wisconsin light artillery, December 22, 1863, and served as a private in the army of the Tennessee until discharged July 3, 1865.

Soon after the close of the war he came to Cedar Rapids, March 25, 1867, and engaged in the clothing business which he followed until 1878, and retired with a competency to go into the real estate business. He organized the first volunteer fire department in 1869 and was chief engineer from 1870 to 1876. He has always been identified with the State Firemen 's association and was president in 1892 and 1893. His connection with the city government of Cedar Rapids began in 1874, when he was elected alderman of the Third ward. In 1878 he was recorder and assessor of the city. He was elected mayor in March, 1895, and was twice re-elected, serving until March, 1898. Mr. Lincoln was always elected as a republican and has been actively identified with all the movements of the party in Iowa since 1867.  During all that time he has hardly ever missed being a delegate to the county and state conventions every year. He served as a member of the republican state central committee from the Fifth district during the years 1890 and 1891. In 1891 he was appointed postmaster of Cedar Rapids, and served four years, and at the present time he is chairman of the republican county central committee of Linn county. Although a strong anti-prohibitionist, he did not leave the party during the prohibitionist fight, believing that the time would come when the party would not make that a test of party fealty and would remove the issue from politics. Mr. Lincoln has had a great part in the development of the enterprising and rapidly growing city of Cedar Rapids. He has been identified with all its improvements and has contributed liberally to promote public enterprises.  During his administration as mayor, large public improvements were made, including paving, sewering, the new union passenger station, and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul station. It is largely on account of his influence and activity that the republican state convention was twice located in Cedar Rapids.

Mr. Lincoln was married in Cedar Rapids, February 17, 1869, to Fannie Atwell, and they have one daughter, Bertha, born February 10, 1875.  Of Mr. Lincoln it can be said without the least exaggeration that he is one of the most popular men in the state. He has friends and intimate acquaintances in every county, so that when he goes to a state convention he can always find friends and acquaintances glad to oblige him, and he is in his turn very eager to serve a friend.

MARSHALL, Rev. Alexander Stewart, D. D., late pastor of the Presbyterian church at Marion, had at the time of his death, February 3, 1896, almost completed a pastorate of forty years. He was the son of John and Elizabeth Stewart Marshall, and was next to the youngest in the family of five sons and three daughters. He was born April 29, 1829, on a farm near Dayton, Armstrong county, Pa., and he received his education, after the common school period, in Elder's Ridge academy and Washington college, graduating from the latter in 1853. He studied theology at Western Theological seminary and Princeton Theological seminary, and was licensed by the Blairsville Presbytery in June, 1855.  In December, 1855, he was united in marriage to Mary Rob Christy, and removed to Marion the following spring, preaching his first sermon April 20, 1856, in the old brick school building torn down four years ago to make room for the new Prescott building. The congregation April 20, 1856, numbered thirty-five.

In March, 1882, partly from ill health and partly from a thought that another might serve the church more efficiently, he tendered his resignation, but the church arose almost in a body to beg him to reconsider it, and granted him a three months' vacation and the means for himself and wife to spend it as they chose.  A man who can live for forty years in one community, and have no one speak slightingly of him when he is gone, is more than an ordinary man. He was an extraordinary man.

Among some of the things that were said of him by L. P. Bardwell, editor of the Marion Pilot, who bore no other relation to him than that of a citizen, are these:

"His kindly greetings were for everybody he met. Particularly was he a man who had only good words for all. No unkindly words were ever spoken in our presence.  Never intolerant in his views, he was nevertheless decidedly firm in his convictions of what he considered right. We believe his life was an open book known and read by all men. His whole soul was in his life work for the Master, and, as we firmly believe, he fell bearing the cross. In season and out of season, we have known him to speak to the weak, discouraged, dejected, or as some would put it-the fallen creatures of the earth, always pointing them to the better way. He was dearly beloved by the large membership of his church, and by those called outsiders, who were regular attendants-by the other denominations with which he always maintained the most cordial relations, and by the community at large, who generously accorded him an honest consistency in all his convictions " A writer from Cedar Rapids, in the Mid-Continent, spoke thus concerning him: " He stood for forty years a witness for Christ in this community, till his sound Presbyterianism, his Christian benevolence, his pastoral influence, and his loyal citizenship, have left their enduring impress upon the church, the school, the town in which he lived, and the whole surrounding community. The people without regard to party or creed, mourn his death. He was an earnest expositor of God's word. He was most mindful of the poor, the sick and the afflicted. He was the friend of everyone in need, as well as everyone who craved counsel and encouragement." Rev. Dr. Marshall left four children: C.  H. Marshall, division chief clerk for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, at this point, and a member of the city council; Miss Lizzie R., the present efficient head of the Marion high school; Mrs. Rosa Phelps, of Council Bluffs, and Miss Bertha, a teacher in Brookline, Mass.

McMILLAN, Horace G., United States district attorney for the northern district of Iowa, and one of the editors and owners of the Cedar Rapids Republican, was born in Wayne county, Ohio, May 20, 1854.  Three years later his parents moved to Washington county, Iowa, first living at Crawfordsville, and afterwards on a farm four miles northeast of the town of Washington. Mr. McMillan's father was a man of sturdy character and of many attainments; of Scotch blood; and his mother belonged to the American pioneer women, who carried refinement as well as industry into the new states of the west and northwest.

As a boy, the subject of this sketch spent more time on the farm than in the schoolroom. He earned practically his own way to a place, first at the bar, and afterwards in the wider affairs of the state, in the business and politics of which he has been permitted to play a prominent part. His early education was obtained in the country schools of Washington county, and the academies of Grand View and Washington. He studied law with McJunkin & Henderson, of Washington, the senior member of the firm being at that time attorney-general of the state of Iowa.  He was admitted to the bar in 1880 by Circuit Judge L. C. Blanchard, of Oskaloosa, and immediately thereafter opened a law office in Washington. In 1882 he became interested in northwestern Iowa, which was then in process of development, and that same year he located in Rock Rapids, Lyon county. A few days after he left his old home, his father died, and, having endorsed for friends and relatives, left an indebtedness of about $4,000. Upon returning to Washington to attend his father's funeral, young McMillan called upon all the creditors and voluntarily assumed this entire indebtedness. With this burden on his shoulders, and with no money, the young attorney invaded the open country of northwestern Iowa, determined to succeed. Ten years afterwards he returned to Washington for the first time, having paid off every dollar of the family indebtedness. In Rock Rapids be had entered into a law partnership with A. Van Wagenen. This partnership was dissolved in 1891. In 1893 he formed another partnership, this time with J. W. Dunlap, also of Washington county. As a lawyer, Mr.  McMillan has been eminently successful.  He has been connected with much of the most important litigation of northwestern Iowa, and has been especially prominent in the bond litigation of Lyon county. The county had been fraudulently bonded for $170,000, and the various school districts had been bonded for from $20,000 to $250,000 each. Mr. McMillan has tried these cases in both the state and United States courts, the supreme court at Washington having decided two of them favorably to him. These services resulted in saving thousands of dollars to the taxpayers of the new county. Mr. McMillan has also been successful in the trial of personal injury and damage cases, especially those growing out of railway accidents. As a boy of 19, he served one year as brakeman on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. His practice has brought him a large income for many years.  Mr. McMillan is also a businessman.  He was one of the first to grasp the possibilities of northwestern Iowa, and on his faith in its development made many investments in land, which have turned out even better than he had anticipated. He is today the owner of 1,000 acres of land in Iowa, and the adjacent counties of Dakota, and manages the Lakewood stock farm, near Rock Rapids, on which is maintained what is conceded to be one of the finest, if not the finest, herds of Jersey cattle in the state or the west.

In 1898 the Cedar Rapids Daily Republican was for sale, owing to the death of its former chief owner, Mr. L. S. Merchant. Seeing the excellent opportunity, it offered for building up a strong newspaper and a profitable business, Mr. McMillan and Cyrenus Cole, for a number of years associate editor of the Iowa State Register, bought the paper.  It immediately took rank with the leading dailies of the state, grew in circulation and influence, and is now enjoying a firmly-established prosperity. The change occurred in May, 1898, and Mr. McMillan removed with his family to Cedar Rapids. 

Mr. McMillan has, from his boyhood up, taken an active part in politics, being by birth and conviction an unswerving republican. Before leaving Washington county, he served as chairman of the county committee there. In 1886 he was elected county attorney of Lyon county, which office he filled for three terms, although the county was democratic part of the time. In 1892 he was elected a member of the republican state central committee for the Eleventh congressional district. He was re-elected in 1894, and in 1895 was elected chairman of the committee. He was in charge of the campaign in which Gen.  Francis M. Drake was elected governor by an almost unprecedented majority, and also had charge of the Iowa campaign for William McKinley and Garret A. Hobart, and his conduct of that campaign won the praise of republicans and gold democrats alike. In 1897 he desired to retire from the state chairmanship, but was again pressed into the service of his party as the manager of the campaign for Leslie M.  Shaw for governor. As a campaign manager Mr. McMillan has tenacity of purpose and persistence of effort well combined with judgment and a wise spirit of conciliation. Under him the party has developed no factions, nor has it wavered. At the meeting of the Iowa congressional delegation, in the spring of 1897, Mr. McMillan was recommended to the president for appointment as United States attorney for the northern district of Iowa, an appointment which was made by President McKinley and confirmed by the senate in February, 1898.

In his home life Mr. McMillan has been happy and successful, as well as in business, law and politics. In 1877, before he began to study law, he was married to Miss Alice Van Doren, of Washington county, who has been a helpmeet to him, not only in his home, but in his public life.  Six children were born to them, five of whom are living. They are Glenn V., Viva Alice, Florence, James B., and Horace G., Jr. Mrs. McMillan has taken a deep interest in the political affairs in which her husband has been prominent She has taken, especially, an interest in educational matters, and was largely instrumental in the founding of the free public library, of Rock Rapids, and feels, with a woman's and a mother's pride, that her best contribution to the world has been her children.

MILLS, Mason P. (deceased), was born at East Windsor, Conn., January 15, 1843; died at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, July 31, 1896.  The life of this soldier, lawyer and citizen was a noble example of the best there is in American citizenship; his death a public calamity. As the public is apt to place a correct estimate upon the character of a man whose career has been a highly prominent one the biographer can do no better than to record in part an editorial which appeared in the Cedar Rapids Republican at the time of the death of Mr. Mills:

"As a citizen he was, from the first, active in all things that make for a city.  He was public spirited and energetic to a degree attained by few men. He was an alderman for many years, and in this capacity did a great deal to shape legislation. He was a born leader. If there was an enterprise on foot, Mr. Mills was either for or against it with all his might. He had the courage, the strong intelligence, the rare and subtle magnetism which, as public men are analyzed, compose the requisites of the real genius of leadership.  As a lawyer he attained a very high rank.  He was a worker, a master of the art of accumulation of testimony-a tactician, skillful in cross-examination, a perfect judge of men, and, therefore, one who selected a jury with method and keen analysis of those who presented themselves for acceptance. Many of our foremost businessmen relied upon him absolutely, and to them the loss will be as a personal bereavement. As a friend, perhaps the word loyal is the best and most expressive adjective descriptive of this phase of his character. It is the fortune of strong characters like Mason P. Mills to be strong in friendship and intense in resentment, to have friends bound to them with hooks of steel, and at the same time have those who swear, familiar like, to love them not at all. And now, what of him?  It does not seem possible that the soul of a man like Mason P. Mills-the force that was in that brain-can have gone out forever. Meeting by the side of his grave this great question which is the dark cloud on the horizon of all of us, we are glad to know that he here found reason for hope."

The father of the deceased died when he was a mere boy and the mother, within a few years, married P. T. Crowell, of Springfield, Mass., a trusted employee of the United States armory at that city.  The mother, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Strong, was a lineal descendant of the Grant family of East Windsor. The early education of Mr. Mills was acquired in the common schools. He was a student in the Upper Iowa university at the breaking out of the war, and at the first call for troops went to Washington and enlisted in a squadron of cavalry known as McClellan's Dragoons. This was George B. McClellan's bodyguard. He served in that capacity under the commanders of the army of the Potomac until the winter of 1863-4, when the squadron of cavalry was ordered to Chicago and made part of the Twelfth Illinois cavalry. There he was made sergeant of the regiment, and afterward promoted to regimental quarter-master and first lieutenant by Governor Yates. He served gallantly at Yorktown, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and in the seven days' fight before Richmond, as well as in the smaller affairs in which the army of the Potomac was engaged up to the year 1864.  He was then sent on the Red River expedition, under General Banks.

He was mustered out of the service February 17, 1865, but until July of that year he was in the government employ, having charge of Camp Fry, in Chicago.  He was not mustered out as an officer until 1887, when he took advantage of the act of congress permitting volunteer officers to be mustered according to their rank, if they had failed to be so mustered, owing to active operations in the field. He did this in order to become eligible to membership in the Loyal Legion, which he at once joined.

When his country no longer needed his services he commenced the study of law in the office of Ira T. Buell, of Chicago, and was admitted to the bar there in 1866.  In 1867 he located at Cedar Rapids and engaged in practice, where he remained until his death. Although not a college-bred man, he was recognized as a thorough scholar. An omnivorous reader, his whole life was a process of self education. He was a republican in politics and was colonel on the staff of Governor Gear during his last administration. He was a prominent member of the Loyal Legion and served as department commander of the G. A. R. in 1890.

He was married October 14, 1869. to Miss Flora B. Coulter, daughter of Dr.  John Parshall Coulter, lieutenant-colonel of the Twelfth Iowa infantry. She is a lady of high attainments and countless personal graces and domestic virtues, so the beauty and happiness of their home life may be imagined. To them were born three children: John, born December 1, 1874; Flora, born May 28, 1877, and Mary, born May 21, 1886.

MOORHEAD, Dr. James, is a native of the state of Ohio. He is the son of Joseph Moorhead, who was born in Holmes county, Ohio, January 15,1828, and was married to Miss Clara A. Heller, of Chemung county, N. Y., March 1,1849. She was the daughter of Moses and Hannah Baker Heller. In 1855 Joseph Moorhead came with his family to Linn county, where he purchased a farm and settled on it, living a few years in a log house. He worked on the farm in the summer and taught public school in the winter for several years. He was an influential citizen, serving in various township and county offices. He served six years as trustee of the state reform school at Eldora. In 1881 he moved to Marion, having been elected county auditor, serving in that position six years.  James was born near Millersburg, Ohio, April 1, 1850. On the paternal side his ancestors were from Scotland, and from Germany on the maternal side. His father and mother both having been school teachers, his early instruction was carefully directed. He first went to school to his father, who taught in a rough, log schoolhouse two miles from their home. 

His boyhood, when not in school, was spent upon the farm, assisting his father in the various kinds of labor required of a farmer's son in those early days. When 18 years of age James taught school in the district where he had obtained his education, and continued teaching each winter for eight years. He was a student at Cornell college for three years. In 1876 he entered into partnership with Dr. Terry, at Ely, in the drug business. He was postmaster at Ely for ten years. He took a two-years' course in pharmacy and graduated from the National Institute of Pharmacy at Chicago in 1887. He moved to Cedar Rapids and opened a first-class drug store, having a large prescription business.  During all the years he was employed in the drug business, Mr. Moorhead had been a studious reader of medical books and publications, and finally decided to take a medical course of instruction, and entered the State university. There he attended medical lectures, and graduated from the homeopathic department in 1893, beginning practice at Cedar Rapids, associated with Dr. W. A. Hubbard. He afterwards took a post graduate course in the Chicago Homeopathic college in 1895. In 1893 he bought the office and practice of Dr. G. S. Muirhead, at Marion, and entered upon the practice of medicine there. He has established an extensive business, and, by his skill and knowledge, won the confidence of the community. He is local surgeon of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway company, and also of the Bankers' Accident Insurance company.  In 1894 he entered into partnership with Dr. Muirhead, who had returned to Marion.

In politics Dr. Moorhead has always been an active republican; has held many township and school offices, and often served as delegate to republican state conventions. He is a member of the following secret societies: Knights of Pythias, Royal Arch Masons, Ancient Order of United Workmen, Improved Red Men, and other lodges. He is captain of Marion Company No. 23, U. R., K. of P.; past chancellor of Mariola Lodge No. 8, K. of P.; high priest of Marion Chapter No. 10, R. A.  M.; past patron of Manon Chapter No. 188, O. E. S.; past great sachem of Iowa, I. O. R. M. He is a member of the Amer-ican Institute of Homeopathy, the Hahnemann Medical Society of Iowa, and of the Central Iowa Medical association. He is medical examiner of the Knights of Honor, A. O. U. W., and Pacific Mutual Life Insurance company, and others. He has always been an active worker and member of the Methodist Episcopal church and its auxiliaries

On December 24, 1871, he was united in marriage with Miss Eliza J.  Stream, youngest daughter of Elias and Mary A. Waters Stream, who were natives of Virginia Eliza was born in Licking county, Ohio, October 14, 1851. She came to Iowa with her parents, who settled in Linn county, in 1855. Three children have been born to them-two boys, who died in infancy, and Clara A., born October 31, 1874. She graduated from the Cedar Rapids high school in 1893 and from Cornell college in 1897, receiving the degree of B. A.