Rev. James Caskey was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, March 8, 1807. His father, James Caskey, was born in County Derry, Ireland, February 21, 1773. He married, in Ireland, Peggy Anderson, born February 21, 1770, emigrated to this country and located in Rockbridge County, Virginia, about 1787. He re-immigrated to Ohio and located at Cherry Fork in 1811, where he spent the remainder of his life. Our subject attended Miami University and graduated there in 1831. He studied theology part of the time at the Associate Reformed Theological Seminary at Oxford, Ohio, and afterwards at the seminary of the same church at Alleghany. April 30, 1835, he was licensed to preach by the First Presbytery of Ohio and was ordained and installed as pastor of the West Union and Russellville churches the same year. During his residence in West Union, he was quite intimate with Ihe Rev. Dyer Burgess, and held the same views as did the latter in regard to slavery. He resigned the church at West Union in 1838 and moved to Ripley, in Brown County. He resigned the church at Russellville in 1851. He was the pastor of the United Presbyterian Church in Ripley, Ohio, from 1838 until his death, February 9, 1854. He was married May 21, 1839, to Isabel Wallas, a daughter of Judge Wallas, of Urbana, Ohio, and left two children, Mrs. Margaret C. Roberts, of 100 Huntington Ave., Boston, Mass., and James D. Caskey, of No. 2715 Twenty-second St., Minneapolis, Minn.
He was a very fine preacher, preparing his sermons with care. For years he was Clerk of the Presbytery, and his records were always prepared and recorded in a very neat style. He was a pleasant speaker. His style of sermonizing was attractive; his language was comprehensive and his reasoning always logical. As a man, he was exemplary and he commanded the respect of all who knew him. He was but forty-seven years of age when he died and his career of usefulness was cut short by the "Last Enemy." His ashes repose in the old cemetery at Ripley.
