JAMES A. CREIGHTON, lawyer, Springfield, was born March 7, 1846, in White County, Ill.
His great-grandfather, John Creighton, was born in Ireland, of Scotch parentage, about 1745. He married, in Ireland, and with his wife came to the colony of South Carolina about 1770, and settled about sixty miles from Charleston, in what was then Dover District, where he became a planter. He had a large family, including eight sons, among the younger of whom was Joseph Creighton, grandfather of James A. He was born in South Carolina about 1788, and was married to Miss Martha Jaggers, and soon after the war of 1812, moved to the Territory of Illinois, and settled in what is now White County. There the father of James A., John M. Creighton, was born in 1821. He married Miss Mary Ann Crews, in Wayne county, Ill., about the 1st of January, 1845, and commenced housekeeping near his father's in White County. His wife was a daughter of James Crews, who was born in Virginia about 1796, and came with his parents to Illinois from Kentucky, some time prior to 1819, and married in Wayne County, about 1823, to Miss Elizabeth Owens. He then settled in Thom's Prairie, where Mary A. Crews was born in 1827.
John M. and Mary A. Creighton continued to reside in White County until James A. was seven years old, when they removed to Wayne County, and settled in Jasper Township, on the farm where the mother still lives, and where the father died in 1869. They had a family of eight children.
James A. Creighton in early life attended the common schools of the country. When seventeen years old he became a pupil of the Fairfield school under the instruction of Professor Cooper, to whom he refers with much pleasure as a worthy man in every respect, and one who was his friend.
In June, 1868, he graduated from the College at Salem, Ill., after which he devoted some years to teaching, during which time he was principal of the public schools of Grayville and Fairfield. He read law with Messrs. Beecher, George Sailor, of Fairfield, and was admitted to the bar in March, 1871. He then opened an office in Fairfield and practiced in Wayne and adjoining counties until May, 1877, when he removed to Springfield, Ill., and formed a copartnership in practice with Alfred Orendorff, his present partner.
He was married, in Fairfield, Wayne Co., Ill., January 1, 1871, to Miss Mary Newman. They have three daughters, viz.,
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