James Washington Guinn

Portrait of James Washington Guinn Headstone Photograph


James W. Guinn
Senator
1806 - 1866

Footstone

Senator
James Washington
Guinn

Born June 11, 1804, Greene County, TN
Died August 27, 1866, Austin, Texas
Father of Five Confederate Soldiers

Delegate to NC Constitutional Convention
Judge, Randolph Co., AL Orphans Court
Member of the Texas House and Senate

Husband of Catherine Ann Dobson,
Buried in Homer, Texas

Placed by his Third Great-Granddaughters
Ginny, Tina, and Amoret Guinn
2003
Full Name: James Washington Guinn
Location: Section:Republic Hill, Section 2 (C2)
Row:V  Number:9
Reason for Eligibility: Member, Texas House of Representatives; Member, Texas Senate 
Birth Date: June 11, 1804 
Died: August 27, 1866 
Burial Date: September 18, 1866 
 
GUINN, JAMES WASHINGTON (1804 - 1866) James Washington Guinn, member of the Texas House of Representatives and Texas Senate, was born June 11, 1804, in Greene County, Tennessee to John and Rachael Shields Guinn. On February 2, 1830, James Washington Guinn and Catherine Ann Dobson were married in Macon County, North Carolina. Andrew Johnson, tailor of Greenville, Greene County, Tennessee, and later President of the United States, made the coat that Guinn wore to his wedding to Dobson. Catherine Ann Dobson was born February 2, 1812. She was the daughter of John Dobson and Nancy Parks Dobson. Catherine was a physician. Family tradition tells that slaves accidentally poisoned Catherine, while on call to deliver a baby. Catherine Ann Dobson Guinn died in Homer, Angelina County, Texas on March 3, 1865, and is buried in the Homer Cemetery, Homer, Texas.

Guinn studied law and was admitted to the bar in Tennessee in 1827, North Carolina in 1828, and Georgia in 1832. In North Carolina in 1832, James W. Guinn was elected Solicitor and in 1835 he represented Macon County as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention at Raleigh. He moved to Fish Head Valley, Alabama November 19, 1841, and to Wedowee, Alabama in 1843. He was elected Judge of County or Orphans Court in 1846 in Randolph County, Alabama and held this office until May 23, 1850, when the court was abolished.

In 1858 Guinn moved to Cherokee County, Texas, where his brother, Robert Henry Guinn, was a lawyer in Rusk, Texas. On January 29, 1859, Guinn moved to Angelina County, Texas, where he and his family show up on the 1860 Federal Census and his occupation is listed as a lawyer. In November 1859, Guinn, with others, was appointed to a committee to consider the relative cost of a brick courthouse in Homer.

In 1861, he was commissioned a Notary Public in Angelina County and in 1863 was elected to represent the counties of Nacogdoches and Angelina in the Texas House of Representatives after receiving one hundred and ten votes. In 1866 he won a seat in the senate with three hundred seventy-nine votes.

While serving in the Senate, Guinn died at the residence of N. C. Raymond August 27, 1866, after a few days illness with Cholera. His remains were buried in the Texas State Cemetery on September 18, 1866.

Information taken from Nancy Graff Guinn Kelsey.
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