James S. Reeder was born March 4, 1840, in Darke County, Ohio, and came with his parents in 1856 to this locality, where he engaged in farming. He enlisted August, 1862, in Company G, Seventy-ninth Illinois Infantry, and served three years. At the battle of Stone River, December 31, 1862, he was wounded and taken prisoner; after being in the enemy’s lines twenty-seven days he was exchanged, and participated in the battles of Liberty Gap and Chickamauga; at the latter, September 19, 1863, he was captured and taken to Richmond prison, thence to Andersonville, Charleston, South Carolina, and Florence, making seventeen months in all spent in prison. At the close of the war he returned and engaged in farming. He was married December 2, 1865, to Mary M. Kelly, who was born in Winchester, Indiana. He resides in Arthur.
