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James McCormick, Jr. was a son of James and Mary Alricks McCormick. He attended the Harrisburg Academy, Harrisburg, PA, and was graduated from Yale University in 1887.
He was employed as a clerk in the Dauphin Deposit Bank (1887-88) and secretary of the Paxton flour mills (1888-1900) and devoted his business efforts to management and experimental reforestation of his farms (100-36). He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Harrisburg Public library for 38 years. He was unmarried.
A patron of the arts, he was a fan of the Harrisburg Symphony orchestra and played the violin for his own pleasure. Active in the Harrisburg Natural History Society and Dauphin County Historical Society -- the organization that now houses the McCormick Family Papers -- James was dedicated, in his day, to preserving Harrisburg's past. He also was an avid reader and was the oldest member of the board of trustees of the Harrisburg Public Library, having served for 38 consecutive years. He was a member of the Pine Street Presbyterian Church, Harrisburg.
At the age of sixteen, James lost his left leg in a shooting accident, when he fell while walking over the ledge of rocks off South Street with a loaded gun in his hand. Then incident received minor press coverage at the time, expressing, to James' parents, the "sympathies of the public in this sad misfortune to their bright, intelligent and promising son."
His siblings were Henry, William, Donald, Robert, (who remained bachelors), Herman and Mary-Kerr McCormick, both of whom died in infancy, and Eliza, the only one of her immediate family to marry.
This site is sponsored by the Center for Pennsylvania Cultural Studies at the Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg, in cooperation with the Historical Society of Dauphin County, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Director of the McCormick Family Papers Project at the Center is Professor Michael Barton.Learn more about the Center, and the program that sponsors this project
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