James A. Tallman
JAMES A. TALLMAN, Probate Judge of Etowah County, was born at Abbeville Court House, S.C., November 27, 1818. His father was Thomas W. Tallman, and his mother, before marriage, was Margaret Taggart.
The senior Mr. Tallman was orphaned when very young, and was by his guardian bound to a tailor in New York City. At an early age he ran away from his employer and shipped on a steamer for Charleston, S. C., at which place he afterward made his home. He lived to be eighty-four years of age. His wife was a daughter of Moses Taggart, a native of Ireland, who came to the United States about the close of the Revolutionary War. and settled in South Carolina, in the Calhoun Settlement. He was a school teacher by profession. He served as Ordinary, or Probate Judge, of his county a number of years. He died in 1840, upward of eighty years of age.
The subject of this sketch spent the first twelve years of his life in the village of his nativity, going thence to the country upon a farm, and later, returning to Abbeville, turned his hand for a while to the printing business. At the age of sixteen years, he accepted a clerkship in a country store, and in 1838, came to Alabama, located in Greene County, where he was employed as a salesman and bookkeeper in a mercantile establishment until 1853. In that year he engaged in mercantile business on his own account at Greensboro, and was there until 1861. During the war he was postmaster at. Greensboro, Ala., to which he was appointed by President Davis. From 1866 to 1868, he was interested in the hotel business at Greensboro and Selma, and in the latter year came to Gadsden as bookkeeper for W. P. Hollingsworth. In 1877 he was elected tax assessor, held that office ten successive years, and in November, 1887, resigned to accept the probate judgeship.
Judge Tallman is one of the active, wide-awake, progressive citizens of the modern city of Gadsden. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and of the Presbyterian Church. October, 1842, in Greene County, he was married to Julia A. Dorroh, daughter of James and Malinda (Wright) Dorroh. She died in 1856, leaving three children, to-wit: Elizabeth, Timothy T. and Harriet W. (Mrs. Samuel R. Smith, of Monticello, Ga). In 1858, the Judge was married to Miss Annie H. Webb, daughter of Dr. Henry Webb, and they have had born to them two children: Julia D., wife of James F. Woodliff, and Margaret, now deceased.
Source: McCalley, Henry, Northern Alabama : historical and biographical. Birmingham, AL: Smith & De Land, 1888, pp. 835.