James Henry Hearn, one of the venerable citizens of Kaufman County, was born in Fayette county, Georgia, December 25, 1835.  He brought his family to Texas from Elmore county, Alabama, after the Civil war.  He was reared in his native county of Fayette in Georgia, and his education came from the old log schoolhouse of the primitive times.  His boyhood was spent in Alabama in comfort and without special incident until the death of his father, and at that time the necessity for self-support was first borne upon him.  Like most of his ancestors he followed the life of the farm, and started out independently as soon as he had married.  Settling in Chambers county, Alabama, just across the line from Georgia, he lived there three years and then took up his residence in Coosa county, where he lived until after the war.

 James Henry Hearn made a gallant record as a soldier, during the war between the states.  On February 1, 1862, he enlisted in the Confederate army as a private in Captain George E. Brewer's Company A, Col. Mike Wood's Forty-sixth Alabama Infantry, in command of Taylor's Brigade of Tennessee Army.  His first fight was a small engagement at Tazewell, Tennessee.  He was with the army in the defense of Vicksburg, and took part in many of the engagements leading up to the crucial time of that defense.  He was at Baker's Creek, Champion Hill, Big Black River, and then was fighting from within the defenses of the city itself.  When the city surrendered to General Grant in July, 1863, the paroled soldiers of the Forty-sixth Mississippi were ordered to Demopolis, Alabama, and were there again equipped for further service, and sent north to reinforce General Bragg's army at Chickamauga.  They arrived too late to take part in the battle, but went to Chattanooga, and Mr. Hearn fought at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, and was in the command which faced the Federal advance during the campaign against Atlanta.  He fought at Dalton, and other engagements, and at Jonesboro a minie ball from a Yankee gun passed through his right arm into his right side angularly and passed out about four inches to the right of the spinal column.  This wound rendered him unfit for further service during the war.  He lay in the hospital from the 31st of August, the day he was shot, for two months, at Macon, Georgia.  He suffered the torments of gangrene poison, and barely escaped with his life.  He was furloughed home as an invalid, and had little capacity for hard labor for some years after the war.  At his last battle when he received his wound, he was wearing the stripes of a sergeant, being first sergeant of his company.

At the close of the war James Henry Hearn found himself stripped of all his property, and had a small family to provide for.  Like many other brave and resolute men of the south, he adapted himself to conditions as they were, and sought to build up his fortune on his farm.  As the outlook was not promising in the old home vicinity he decided to seek friends and fortune further west.  He journeyed by way of boat from Wetumka, Alabama, around by New Orleans, and finally arrived at Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1868.  From there the family journeyed by rail to Marshall, which was then the terminus of the Texas and Pacific Railroad, and thence by private conveyance reached College Mound in Kaufman county.  When he was finally settled and had his program well laid out, Mr. Hearn began investing in land in Kaufman county, at prices ranging from one dollar and a half to three dollars and a half per acre.  He lived modestly and quietly, kept aloof from politics, improved his land and premises, encouraged education by aiding the erection of several schoolhouses, during the thirty-two years of residence, and contributed also to the burden of church work and church responsibilities.  He saw his children grow to become men and women, and go out into the world as tillers of the soil with educations obtained in their own community.  With such a career behind him, it is not strange that James Henry Hearn has the respect and esteem of all who know him and he is one of the best known men in Kaufman county.  He is a member of the Missionary Baptist church, and in politics is a Democrat.

On February 16, 1854, James Henry Hearn was married in Harris county, Georgia, to Miss Burkhalter, a daughter of John Burkhalter, a South Carolina man, a farmer by occupation and an ardent southerner who furnished several sons for the army.  Mrs. Hearn died August 21, 1899.

The children of James H. Hearn and wife are:
Cornelius M.  
Martha E., of Long Beach, California, who first married
  Andrew Hunter, and second H.P. Paschal;
John, a farmer of Kaufman county;
William, of Hastings, Oklahoma;
Clinton, who died at Coleman, Texas, in April 1913, and left a family;
George E., who died at Hastings, Oklahoma, leaving a family;
Mary, wife of David Kerley of Scurry, Kaufman county, Texas;
David, of Hastings, Oklahoma,
Lee, of Van Zandt county, Texas.

James Henry Hearn died Nov. 12, 1922 and was laid to rest at the Black Jack Cemetery in the neighborhood where he resided for fifty four years.

SOURCE:
A History of Texas and Texans, Vol IV

Frank W. Johnson
Edited and Brought to Date by
Eugene C Barker, PhD
Professor of American History - The University of Texas
The American Historical Society Chicago and New York 1914