Dr. James B. Young (Washington County)
State House: 1876-1877
Born: c. 1825 in New York
Doctor. Born free to Randall and Polly Young of Athens, Greene County, New York, where the family is listed on the 1850 census. James’ estimated age at that time was 25.
Appears on the 1860 census in Denver (then located in Kansas Territory), occupation “physician,” and is mentioned by Henry O. Wagoner in a letter to Frederick Douglass from Denver in 1861.
Newspaper ads indicate that he had relocated to Tennessee by 1866. He is listed on the 1870 census in Knoxville, where he was active in politics before moving to Mississippi. He led Knoxville’s celebration of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment and was a candidate for the Tennessee state legislature. He moved to Mississippi sometime around 1873.
Greenville’s Weekly Democrat-Times recorded the death of a “Jas. Young, colored” on September 8, 1878, in the middle of the widespread yellow fever epidemic. Because Young was a doctor, and because I haven’t found references to him after 1876, I suspect that he is the James Young who died on September 8, 1878. It is also possible that Young left the state, though I cannot find a James Young who matches his description on the 1880 census.
This page was last updated on January 30, 2026.