JAMES BENNETT McCREARY
McCREARY, JAMES BENNETT, soldier, congressman and, from 1875-79 governor of Kentucky, and United States senator, has taken a leading part in the politics of his state for nearly forty years; and his reputation for ability, honesty and purity has been made under the severe test of public life and political action. He was born at Richmond, Kentucky, July 8, 1838, the son of E. R. and Sabrina Bennett McCreary. His father was a physician and farmer, an honest, intelligent, energetic, affable and brave man. His mother exercised a very strong influence for good upon her son's character. James McCreary and Thomas Barr were the first known ancestors of the family in America.
Brought up in the country he was a healthy, robust boy, studious and ambitious. He had no unusual difficulties to overcome in acquiring an education; but as a boy he was " accustomed to help in all kinds of labor on his father's farm." He was graduated from Centre college, Danville, Kentucky, in 1857, and took a course at the law school at Lebanon, Tennessee, where he was graduated with first honors in 1859. He began at once the practice of law at Richmond, Kentucky, but had hardly become established as an attorney, when, at the out-break of the Civil war, he enlisted in the Confederate army; and as major, and later as lieutenant-colonel of the 11th Kentucky cavalry, he served under Generals Bragg and Morgan in the army of the Tennessee, and under General Breckenridge in Virginia until the close of the war.
In 1868 he was nominated as presidential elector; but since he had so recently served in the Confederate army, he felt it more fitting to decline. July 4th of the same year, he was elected delegate to the Democratic national convention in New York city. In 1869 he was elected a member of the Kentucky house of representatives, and in 1871-72 and in 1873-74 he was speaker of that house. It is said that "no appeal was ever taken from his decisions, an evidence of his fair-minded impartiality and his wise tact." In 1875, he was the candidate of the Democratic party for governor of Kentucky, opposed
