DR. James Brown Wallace was on his father’s side of Scotch extraction, his grandfather, Dr. Michael Wallace, having come from Glasgow, Scotland, to Port Tobacco, Maryland, as a medical student to a Scotch physician, Dr. Brown, one of the most eminent men in his profession in Maryland.

After leaving school he entered the office of Dr. Carmichael, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and read medicine with him, and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania. And then, like many another young professional man of his day in the Old Dominion, he launched out South or West to make his fortune, and a home.

In the company of young companions he started out on horseback over the Blue Ridge and Cumberland Mountains through east Tennessee, and arrived at Huntsville, Alabama, which was a Virginia colony on the confines of civilization, all the country south of there to Louisiana being in the possession of the Indians. Not satisfied there, he pressed on through the Indian country to Louisiana.

Served as Surgeon's mate with 16th Virginia Regiment during the War of 1812.

The War of 1812 having closed only a few years before, he found business of every kind prostrate, and selling his horse, he embarked in one of the three or four steamboats then navigating the Mississippi River, for Louisville, Kentucky. His description of these steamers seems ridiculous when compared with the fleets of the “floating palaces” now seen on all the western rivers. The cabin was in the hold, and they had to land each night and cut a cord of wood to run them the next day. None were over 300 or 400 tons; the fare was $300, and they were one month making the trip.

There were only two or three settlements on the river from Natchez to Louisville, which the latter, only contained about 1,500 to 2,000 inhabitants settled along the banks of the Ohio. Where the courthouse now stands was a large lake or pond where the young people took boat-rides. He found both friends and relatives in Louisville, and remained about two years, practicing his profession, when his father dying, he returned to Virginia to wind up the estate and look after his brothers and sisters.

At this time he formed the acquaintance and married Miss Sarah A.E. Clayton, the daughter of Maj. Philip Clayton, of Culpeper, and after three children were born to them, he, about the year 1825, again started to Kentucky, but this time turned his face to Christian County, where his relations, Capt. Green and family, had settled, Mrs. Lucy Green being his first cousin.

After a long and tedious journey in wagons, he arrived and rented a place below where Newstead stands, and entering into partnership with the late Dr. John A. Steele, he resumed the practice of his profession.

He described all South Christian, except along the streams, as a vast prairie. Herds of deer could be seen at almost any time and for miles, and in the spring of the year, when riding over the country the horse’s hoofs would be dyed red with the wild strawberries that almost carpeted the ground.

There were only a few farms along the road to Hopkinsville from where he rented; the best improved of which he bought after a few years from Dr. Wilkins, who moved to Louisiana, when he improved, and where he resided until his death.

The last buffalo ever seen east of the Ohio, was claimed to be killed at a spring, on this place about this time by “Uncle Billy Means,” one of the oldest settlers in the county and his near neighbor.

Dr. Wallace now virtually abandoned the practice of his profession, and gave himself up to improving his home, educating his children, and cultivating kindly relations with his neighbors, all of whom he became greatly beloved and respected. He was always a great student, and kept himself posted, and up with all progress of the age, and was one of the first to introduce improved machinery into agriculture, and to educate the farmers. He became a successful planter, and lived a happy and useful life, until, after brief but severe illness; he died on the 30th of September 1860, in his sixty-eighth year. His beloved wife survived him only a few months, dying the following December, in her fifth-sixth year.

Dr. Wallace was one of the first to organize the Episcopal Church in Hopkinsville, and was one of the first vestrymen, and lived and died an honest and devoted Christian. As a man, he was always generous, courteous, and eminently domestic in all his habits. His was a virtue that shone with no ordinary luster; that would bear at all times the closest scrutiny. As a parent, a husband, a master and a friend, he was ever true to the interest of those entrusted to his care. An absence of all pretense, a love of truth in word and action were among his most prominent characteristics. Refinement and culture with him consisted not in mere efforts at external display. His ideal was correct, and in him was exemplified the Christian gentleman. In brief, in the language of Pope, he was “An honest man – the noblest work of God.”