My Genealogy Hound

James Lawrence Rush, a leading criminal lawyer of Missouri, was born in Westmoreland County, Penn., November 9, 1832, being the eldest of eight children born to the union of John H. and Margaret (Riley) Rush. The father was born in 1806, and died at Bedford, Penn., in 1870, and the mother was born in 1807, and died in 1882. James L. Rush received a common-school education, and at the age of seventeen years he went to Baltimore, Md., and learned the carriage-maker’s trade, which he continued until twenty-one years of age. He then worked at his trade for one year at Washington, Penn., when he went to Bedford and entered the law office of Judge William McClay Hall, being admitted to the bar in 1857. In 1858 he came to Marshfield, Mo., and here carried on the practice of law until the breaking out of the late Civil War, when he joined the Webster County Home Guards, and served as such for three months. After the battle of Wilson’s Creek he acted as a Union scout during the retreat on Rolla. Later he entered the Sixth Provisional Regiment as adjutant, detached from the Enrolled State Militia, and at the organization of the Sixteenth Regiment he was made major, and took part in the campaign against Price in 1864. During the last four months of the war he was on detached service at Springfield, Mo., with Gen. Sanborn, as acting judge advocate. Since the war Mr. Rush has been engaged in the law practice at Marshfield. He is a Democrat in politics, and in 1860 he was elected county surveyor. He was also elected county attorney seven years later, and was the Democratic elector from the Thirteenth Missouri District in 1888. July 1, 1860, he was united in marriage to Miss Frances E. Nichols, and she and one of eight children were killed in the cyclone of 1880. Mr. Rush is a Mason, also a member of the G. A. R., and is one of the prominent men of Marshfield.