Dr. James Shackleford

James studied medicine under his great grandfather Dr. John Shackleford, then attended Transylvania University, married Mary Baird and moved to Portsmouth, Ohio. He practiced medicine successfully there until about 1863 when he and his family moved to Ft. Des Moines, Iowa and landed a fortune of which his daughter was a beneficiary and established the trusts with which the heirs of John and Sprigg are concerned.

• Date of birth: 1809
• Place of birth: Maysville, Kentucky
• Date of death: June 17, 1872
• Father: James Shackleford
• Mother: Elizabeth Clark
• Marriage(1833): Marg. Scott Baird
• Children:
  • James
  • John
  • Henry
  • Mary
  • Margaret
  • Hattie
  • Clark

The following is from a booklet titled "A Tribute", a funeral memorial for Margaret Scott Baird.

Many of our readers among the older class will regret to learn of the death of Dr. James M. Shackleford, which occured in Des Moines, Ia., on the 17th of June, 1872, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. He was born and raised within a few miles of Maysville. On thid eath of his father he came to this city to complete his education and study medicine. He and the late Alexander McClung were students together in the office of his brother, Dr. John Shackleford, of this city. After having completed his preparatory studies he attended a course of lectures in the winter of 1832-33; and in the winter of 1833-34 he attended the medical depatertment of the Translvania university, at Lexington, in which department he graduated at the close of the term as an M.D. He moved to this place in 1837, and in a short while he settled permanently in Portsmouth, Ohio, where he resides until about three years since, when he went to Iowa. He had the singular faculty of winning the love of those with whom he associated. Indeed, a stranger in asssociating with him would feel almost instinctively, the presence of a generous, manly soul. His life was full of little kindnesses to all his friends. At every visit here he remembered his old friends among the colored folks, and if he did not get to see them so that he could give it himself, he would leave something to help them along in the world. His skill as a physician and his character as a man made him many warm friends wherever he went. He was a tender, loving father, a warm and devoted husband, and a true friend. The many hearts that feel his loss can garner up the memory of his life, and give the freest judgment that he was a generous, noble, Christian man.