"Jerome, Dr. James H., of Saginaw City, Michigan, was born at Cochecton [Damascus], on the Delaware River, in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, September 28, 1812. He is the fifth son of Horace and Nancy (Reed) Jerome. His father was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1780, and, some time during his minority, emigrated to Fabius, Onondaga County, New York. At the age of twenty-one, he married Nancy Reed, who was born in the precincts of Amenia Union, Dutchess County, New York, in 1785. Her parents, Daniel and Mary (Hopkins) Reed, were residents of the place during the stirring times of the American Revolution, in which her grand-parents were active participants. The early settlers of Amenia were chiefly Palatines, from the interior of Germany, who were driven from their native land by the execution of a cruel French edict to destroy and lay waste their cities and villages, in 1724. They were of the Protestant faith, and chiefly Presbyterians. Others of kindred religious sentiment were attracted there from Connecticut and Massachusetts, as early as 1740; prominent among these were families of Hopkins and Reed. Captain Stephen Hopkins, grandson of the second Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, resided there previous to 1748. Five of his sons were officers in the Revolutionary army; two joined the Green Mountain boys, under Colonel Ethan Allen, and were killed by the Indians. Mr. Jerome's great-grandfather, Colonel Roswell Hopkins, took part, with his regiment, in the battle of Saratoga, and was noticed for his bravery in the battle near Fort Independence. The youngest of the brothers, in the beginning of the War of 1812, was appointed one of the eight Brigadier-Generals of New York State. The Reed family consisted of seven brothers, who were all mentioned in the roll of honor as officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary army from Amenia Union. Previous to 1812, Horace Jerome removed to Cochecton, and engaged in procuring and running mast rafts, through the Delaware River, to Philadelphia. This business was ruined by the embargo of 1812. In 1813 he purchased six hundred acres of land in the Town of Ulysses, New York, and engaged in clearing it. There his wife died, in 1814; and he married, in 1815, Elizabeth R. Hart. Mr. Jerome continued in this vicinity until 1828, variously occupied in agriculture, milling, cloth manufacturing, distilling, and general merchandise; all of which enterprises terminated in the loss of forty thousand dollars by the failure of his New York consignees. Shattered in fortune, he removed to Detroit, and erected, with Thomas Palmer, a lumber establishment on Pine River, St. Clair County, Michigan. He died, in Detroit, in 1850 (sic.), and left his son, at the age of eighteen, to meet life comparatively alone. Doctor Jerome attended the district school, and enjoyed one year's tuition in the Ovid Academy. His first situation, in Detroit, was as bar-tender, at eight dollars per month. While in this position, he made the acquaintance of some journeymen hatters, with whom he was so much pleased as to prevail upon his father to allow him to learn the hatter's trade. After two years' apprenticeship, he returned with his mother and family to New York State, and worked at his trade at Skaneateles one year. He then engaged for one year with Messrs. Manning & Cutler in a country store in Hector, New York, as clerk and finisher of hats, alternately. March 4, 1834, he commenced the study of medicine and surgery with Dr. Moses Tompkins, an eminent practitioner in that locality. In the winter of 1834-5, he attended the Geneva Medical College. Dr. Willard Parker held the chair of Anatomy and Physiology, and to him more than to any other teacher, Dr. Jerome is indebted for the measure of success which he has attained. He early developed a decided taste for the study of anatomy, as the foundation of all genuine medical and surgical knowledge. Accepting a loan of money from a young journeyman blacksmith, he followed Doctor Parker to Pittsfield, Massachusetts; and, on his invitation, returned to Geneva, and officiated as pro-dissector during a course of lectures. In 1836 his debt to the blacksmith had accumulated to the amount of six hundred dollars, and he felt the necessity of providing some other means of payment than the slow and uncertain gains of a young physician. His mother and younger children had returned to Michigan, where an older brother had remained, and Doctor Jerome determined to make them a visit, and, if possible, better his fortunes. He entered the employment of Major John Biddle, in the Land-office at Detroit, as clerk, with the privilege of supplying, so far as he was able out of office hours, the great demand for township plats, by showing the sold and unsold land. He soon became an expert in this work, and made it very profitable. On the closing of the Land-office, in order to effect a division of the then Detroit district to form the Saginaw Land District, Hon. Michael Hoffman was appointed agent for the latter. He was unacquainted practically with its duties, and, through Major Biddle's recommendation, Mr. Jerome secured a position with him until October, in the office, which was located on the site of the present town of Flint. He attended his fourth and final course of medical lectures at Geneva the following winter. From the proceeds of his six months' labor, he purchased from the Government nine hundred acres of land, chiefly in Shiawassee County, and retained four hundred dollars to use in the completion of his education and his settlement in business. During his last course of lectures, a difference arose between him and Professor Morgan, who occupied the chair of Surgery in the institution, and he refused to present himself for graduation. He received his diploma from the Board of State Censors, and commenced practicing at Trumansburg, New York. The following year, he married Lisette Atwater, of Perry, in that State. He connected himself immediately with the Tompkins County Medical Society; and, September 14, 1847, organized, at Owego, the Medical Association of South Central New York. This included Brown, Tioga, Cortland, and Tompkins counties, and numbered among its members the best physicians in that part of the State. In May, 1848, Doctor Jerome, as delegate, attended the first annual meeting of the American Medical Association, held at Baltimore, Maryland. In 1851 he was elected President of the Medical Association of South Central New York, and delivered the annual address, in 1852, at Owego. In 1855 the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred upon him by Hobart Free College, and, in July of the same year, he was elected to the Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology in the Geneva Medical College. He gave his introductory lecture in that institution October 4, 1855. In 1856 he was a delegate to the session of the American Medical Association, at Detroit, Michigan; and, in 1859, to the New York State Medical Society at Albany, of which he became a permanent member. During the session of the State Legislature in 1858-9, he was appointed, by the Governor and Senate, Physician-in-Chief of the Marine Hospital of the port of New York. He terminated his labors in Geneva College in January, 1859, and entered upon his new duties on Staten Island the following May. His salary, five thousand dollars per annum, was chargeable to the fund under the control of the Commissioners of Emigration.. As representative of the Marine Hospital, he attended the Third National Quarantine Convention, held in the city of New York. During his term of service, material differences arose between him and the Commissioners of Emigration, caused by a desire on their part to abolish the Quarantine Hospital, unless they could control its chief officer. Doctor Jerome declined such subservience; whereupon the differences became more serious, and occupied largely the public press of the city and the State of New York. The Commissioners withheld part of his salary, and Doctor Jerome applied to the courts for a mandamus to compel its payment, which, under the statute, was due quarterly. Judge Leonard, of the Supreme Branch, in a lengthy opinion covering the whole quarantine question, sustained the mandamus, and recognized Doctor Jerome as the physician of the Marine Hospital, and the rightful Superintendent of the Quarantine Hospital and grounds; directing that his salary as such be paid by the Commissioners. On appeal by the Commissioners to the Supreme Court of the State, this was subsequently fully sustained. In active sympathy with Doctor Jerome were many of the leading men of the State; among whom were Lieutenant-Governor Campbell, Hon. H. H. Van Dycke, Hon. Lyman Thomas, and ex-Lieutenant-Governor Selden. The Legislature also supported him, as was evinced by the refusal of the Senate to confirm the nominee of Governor Morgan as his successor, at the expiration of his term of office. Doctor Jerome resigned, and returned to his home in Trumansburg, where he had made a wide and enviable reputation, not only a skillful physician, but as a bold and successful surgeon. During his stay at the hospital, he was bereft of a son. July 30, 1863, his wife died, from ossification of the valves of the heart; and, in December of the same year, his eldest son, George—a young man of great promise—was taken away after a brief illness. January 3, 1865, his third son died at Trumansburg. These repeated bereavements deprived the old home of its former attractions, and Doctor Jerome removed, as soon as he could make the necessary arrangements, to Saginaw, Michigan. April 4, 1865, he was again married, to Miss Calista Allen, a lady of culture, whose parents were among the first settlers of Almont, Michigan; and, a month later, he established himself with his family at Saginaw, where he was already engaged in the lumber business in the firm of Jerome & Atwater. On the 9th of September, his son Frederick was drowned while bathing in the Saginaw River. About this time, the Tittabawassee Boom Company constructed booms at points in the Tittabawassee, Pine, and Chippewa rivers, only a few miles above Midland City, near which, in company of Mr. Atwater, he had erected a mill at a cost of twenty-five thousand dollars. These booms made it impossible for them to float logs to their mills, rendering their investment almost valueless. After three years' struggle with these difficulties, Doctor Jerome built, at Carlton, on the Saginaw River, the mill now owned by the Bliss Brothers. He commenced a suit against the Tittabawassee Boom Company for damages sustained through their instrumentality; which, after a five years' contest, was adjusted by the Boon Company paying him nearly eight thousand dollars. At the conclusion of the civil war, Dr. L. W. Bliss, a Surgeon of the 51st New York Regiment of Infantry, who had married Doctor Jerome's eldest daughter, came to Saginaw, and renewed a partnership with him in the practice of surgery and medicine, which had previously existed at Trumansburg. Mrs. Bliss died in 1872, and Doctor Jerome has now only four living children—six of the eight by his first wife having died. Doctor Jerome has ever been a strong advocate and supporter of the common-school system. He was instrumental in the establishment of a union school at Trumansburg, as a substitute for the small district arrangement, and was a member of the Board of Education ten years. Soon after going to Saginaw, he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the School Board, and was afterwards elected two successive terms. At this time, the school buildings and other kindred appointments were sadly deficient in answering the educational wants of that growing city. Doctor Jerome, in company with other members of the Board, began to agitate the necessity of a large central school building; and procured and submitted plans and propositions to the district meetings called for that purpose. Although much opposition was made to its progress, an edifice was completed in 1867; which, as a common-school building at that period, was without parallel upon this continent; and is to-day the pride and ornament of the city. During his term of service, two ward buildings were erected, which placed the educational interests of Saginaw on a sure foundation. He was largely instrumental in forming the Saginaw Valley and the present State Medical Societies of Michigan; and has been Vice-President and President of the latter. In 1868 he gave the President's annual address, which was chiefly devoted to the prospective establishment of homeopathy in the medical department of the University of Michigan. He was a firm opponent of all sects in medicine, having implicit faith in the inductive philosophy based upon analytical research. Doctor Jerome was delegate from Michigan to the National Association in Detroit, in 1874; at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1875; and at Chicago, in 1877. At the session of the State Medical Society at Ann Arbor, in 1876, he took an active part in the discussion of the university question, and was a member of the committee of nine to whom were referred all papers relating thereto; he was also a member of the sub-committee of three, appointed to draft resolutions expressive of the society's estimate of the existing status of the university. The action of the American Medical Association at Philadelphia, and also at Chicago, sustained the views taken by this committee. Although he has, in a measure, retired from the practice of his profession, his opinion in important and intricate cases is much sought for, and relied upon. As a politician, while never seeking emoluments, he was a member of the old Whig party, and subsequently a Republican. Doctor Jerome and his family are members of the Methodist Church; and in this connection, at the earnest solicitation of the Presiding Elder of the Saginaw District, eh became the prosecuting counsel for the church at Chesaning, in the trial of Rev. F. W. May, a member of the Detroit Annual Conference, before a committee of ministers of the same conference. The trial lasted thirty-nine days. The concluding argument for the prosecution was made by Doctor Jerome, and was "a surprise to friend and foe for its presentation, logic, and courtesy." Doctor Jerome has, for many years, dealt successfully and extensively in lands, and is now one of the large land-holders in the State. He has lately become much interested in agriculture, and is carrying on a fine farm adjacent to the city. He is a contributor to the secular and agricultural press of the State, and correspondent of the State Board of Health." – Excerpt from "American Biographical History of Eminent and Self-Made Men, Michigan, Volume," published by Western Biographical Publishing Co., Cincinnati, O., 1878.