James M. Wade
Written as “Pa”, “Father”
James M. Wade was born in New York City on February 19, 1816, of what his obituary called “old English stock” (Brooklyn Daily Times, April 5, 1876, p. 3; Find a Grave). He was left an orphan at twelve or fourteen. His brother and sister also died soon after their parents, and he became “the chief support of a half sister” (Brooklyn Daily Times, April 5, 1876, p. 3).
At twenty he became the junior partner in a coffee-roasting and spice business in New York (Brooklyn Daily Times, April 5, 1876, p. 3); in 1850 the census lists him in Williamsburgh as a spice grinder (1850 U.S. census, on FamilySearch). In 1855 the state census still lists him, and his son James, 17, in a coffee and spice factory, in the 15th Ward of Brooklyn (1855 New York State census). When his health failed he left that business and became a builder in Brooklyn, “with varying success” (Brooklyn Daily Times, April 5, 1876, p. 3). The city directory for 1864 lists him as a builder at 183 South 6th Street, in the Eastern District (1864 Brooklyn City Directory), the house the family lived in during the war (James to Mother, January 17, 1864). At the start of the war he owned considerable property, but “lost it all in the panic that ensued”, and afterward worked chiefly in real estate, as an agent on Broadway “in the immediate neighborhood of the Times office” (Brooklyn Daily Times, April 5, 1876, p. 3). This was the “real estate business” James wrote of in 1864 (James to Mother, September 3, 1864); the 1865 state census lists him as an agent (1865 New York State census).
He married Eliza Ann Wade, the daughter of John and Mary Elizabeth Wade (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 16, 1915, p. 1). Eliza Ann’s father probably lived with them in his last years: a John Wade, 78, listed as “Father” and born in England, was in their household in 1855 (1855 New York State census), and a John Wade, aged 79, was buried in January 1856 “from the house of J. M. Wade, No. 66 Ninth street” (Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1856, p. 2). The censuses of 1850, 1855 and 1865 name six of their children: James, William, Washington, John, Sophia and Durlyn (1850; 1855; 1865). Washington and Sophia appear only in 1850.
During the war his sons sent their pay home for him to manage. James sent $200 in January 1864, “which Pa will put in the Bank to my account” (James to Mother, January 17, 1864), and wrote, “I have the utmost faith in Pa’s financial abilities” (James, January 18, 1864). In October 1863 Father wrote to Willie that if he were held, “if you can get a commission in the Regt. with James, I think it would be best to do so” (Father to Willie, October 3, 1863). James thought “he should have been a Brigadier General, he writes like a solider, no surplus of words” (James, October 19, 1863).
In 1874 he helped found Trinity Baptist Church. He served on its committee on organization, and the church “organized December 18, 1874, at the home of James M. Wade, 10 Kossuth place” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 10, 1912, p. 7). He was “long a deacon” there (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 3, 1914, p. 13). He was remembered as “a man of sound judgment and solid good sense”, who “in his family especially… was revered almost to idolatry” (Brooklyn Daily Times, April 5, 1876, p. 3). He died on April 1, 1876, at about nine in the morning, at 252 South Ninth Street, his son James’s house, aged 60 years, 1 month and 12 days. The cause was pneumonia of twenty days, complicated by phthisis of a year; his son Dr. James D. Wade had attended him since January 1, and signed the certificate. It records that he had lived in Brooklyn thirty years, and that his parents were both born in New York (Brooklyn certificate of death No. 3172, 1876). He left his widow and four sons, “among whom are our successful and well known physicians, Drs. James D. and John E. Wade” (Brooklyn Daily Times, April 5, 1876, p. 3), and was buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn, on April 3 (certificate No. 3172; Find a Grave).
- From James M. Wade 1
- 1863 Oct 3