James was prepared for college under Rev. John Todd Caldwell and entered the College of New Jersey. He came hither when the college was at Newark and formed the acquaintance, while there, of a young maiden to whom he was afterwards married. He graduated in September, 1759, and on Sept. 17, 1760, he was ordained. He received a call from the Presbyterian church of this town in November, 1761, which he accepted. He was duly installed in March, 1762, with an annual salary of £160. He was at that time in the twenty-seventh year of his age, a young man of prepossessing appearance and of more than ordinary promise as a preacher of the gospel. In the year of 1775 charges were preferred to the Presbytery by former members of the congregation affecting the orthodoxy of their pastor, Mr. Caldwell, which, however, were found to be of trivial import and not affecting at all his soundness in the faith. Whatever uneasiness may have grown out of this matter, it was speedily forgotten in the rush of events that preceded and precipitated the War of the Revolution. On the question then at issue Mr. Caldwell’s position was a matter of public knowledge. He waited not to learn how the struggle was likely to terminate; his ardent temperament was for his country, for liberty, for independence. In all his prayers, often in his sermons and exhortations, and in all his pastoral intercourse, no religious society in the land took a bolder move or stand, and few were more efficient for their country’s cause than Reverend Caldwell and his congregation. And not a little of this patriotism was owing to the fervent zeal of their pastor. Among his congregation at the commencement of the Revolution were such men as William Livingston, governor of the state; Elias Boudinot, afterwards president of the Continental Congress; Abraham Clark, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; Hon. Robert Ogden, speaker of the assembly at an earlier day, with his three sons, Robert, Matthias and Aaron (the two last distinguished officers in the United States army); Hon. Stephen Crane, speaker of the assembly; Elias Dayton and his son Jonathan, both of them subsequently general officers of the army and the latter, speaker of congress. From this one congregation went forth about forty commissioned officers and privates to fight the battles for independence. Among the men belonging to the militia of Elizabeth who enlisted on board of the different sloops as volunteers, in order to take the ship _Blue Mountain Valley_, January 22, 1776, under the command of Colonel Dayton, are to be found the following good old Irish names: Sergeant Thomas Quigley, Thomas McCarty, Timothy B. Stout, James Clancey, Timothy Burns, Moses Connell and William Higgins. Among the commissioned officers of Reverend Caldwell’s congregation in the army are found a Capt. David Lyons, and Capt. Matthias Lyons, Irish or of Irish descent, without a doubt.