My Genealogy Hound

JAMES W. CALVERT, a native of Lexington, Ky., was born July 2, 1817, and is the eldest of twelve children born to Willis Calvert, who was twice married — first to Elizabeth Ewing, of Fayette County, and second to Rebecca A. Ragsdale, of Boone County, Ky. The former died in 1827, and the latter in 1861. Willis Calvert was born April 5, 1794, in Virginia; was a soldier in the war of 1812, and was wounded at the battle of Raisin. He kept a hotel from 1832 to 1847. In the latter year he moved to Nashville, Tenn., where he died with cholera in 1849. He was justice of the peace for many years, and was sheriff of the county. After his death the family removed to Kentucky. The paternal and maternal grandfathers of our subject were early settlers in Fayette County, Ky., where they died. The family is of English origin. James W. Calvert was reared in Burlington, and educated at the town academy. At the age of twenty-one he began to read law under J. M. Preston, a lawyer who settled in the county in 1815. Mr. Calvert began practicing in the spring of 1841, and continued until 1878, when he retired. He is a Royal Arch Mason, and a member of the Christian Church; politically he is a Republican. His uncle, James Calvert, was elected sheriff at the first election under the new constitution; he represented the county in the Legislature during the war, and was also provost-marshal; he was born in 1806 and died in 1876.