James A. Caldwell

       
      James A. Caldwell, attorney and president of the Chattanooga Gas Light Company, is a native of Hamilton County, but was reared principally in Monroe County, Tenn. He was educated in the University of Virginia, and served four years in the Fifty-ninth Tennessee Infantry (which was mounted part of the time). After the war he came to Chattanooga in 1867, and practiced law alone until 1870, when he was elected clerk and master, and held this position until 1876, after which he resumed the practice of law alone.   In 1873 he was united in marriage to Elizabeth S. Gillespie, a native of Roane County, Tenn., and the daughter of Gen. George L. Gillespie. The fruit of this union were four children, three of whom are living. In 1884 Mr. Caldwell formed a partnership with H. L. Turney, whose death occurred in 1885, since which time our subject has conducted the practice alone. He has been president of the gas company since 1873, and was director of that company previous to that date. He assisted in the organization of the Forest Hill Cemetery Company, being at different times director, secretary and treasurer of the same. Mr. Caldwell and family are members of the First Presbyterian Church, of which he is an elder. His parents, O. H. P. and Jane (Johnston) Caldwell, are natives of Monroe County, Tenn. The father's death occurred in Georgia in 1854. The mother, now Mrs. William M. Stately, is living in Alabama.
Goodspeed's "History of East Tennessee" 1887