James Reeside, the second son of Edward Reeside and his wife, Janet Alexander, was born near Paisley, Renfrew, Scotland, and was brought, when an infant, to Baltimore county, Md., in 1789, where he was raised. His parents being in humble circumstances, toil was his first estate. Poor in book learning and in earthly goods, he possessed genius, energy, executive ability, and an ambition that fitted him to be a leader of men. Before the war of 1812 he was a wagoner, hauling merchandise from Baltimore and Philadelphia to Pittsburg and west to Zanesville and Columbus, Ohio. His promptness and sagacity soon enabled him to own his own teams, which were employed in hauling artillery to Canada. Commissioned a forage master under Gen. Winfield Scott, at Lundy's Lane, his Scottish blood prompted him to seize a musket, as a volunteer, from which hard fought battle he carried honorable scars. On his return he settled at Hagerstown, Md., where, in 1816, he married Mary, the daughter of John Weis, a soldier of the Revolutionary war. Abandoning wagoning, he ran a stage line, in 1816 to 1818, from Hagerstown _via_ Greencastle and Mercersburg to McConnellstown, there connecting with the stage line then in operation from Chambersburg to Pittsburg by Bedford, Somerset, and Mt. Pleasant. In 1818, in connection with Stockton & Stokes, of Baltimore; Joseph Boyd, of Hagerstown; Kincaid, Beck & Evans, of Uniontown; George Dawson, of Brownsville; Stephen Hill, of Hillsboro; and Simms & Pemberton, of Wheeling, he put on the first regular stage line, carrying the mail, between Baltimore and Wheeling, before the construction of the turnpikes between Hagerstown and Cumberland. This division of the route being from Hancock to Frostburg, he removed to Cumberland, where, in conjunction with his stage line, he kept the "McKinley Tavern," at the corner of Baltimore and Mechanics streets, afterward kept by Jacob Fechtig, James Stoddard, John Edwards, and others, and now known as the "Elberon." In 1820 he quit tavern keeping, and confined himself to mail contracting and the stage business. In 1827 John McLean, Postmaster General, afterward one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, prevailed on him to take the mail contract between Philadelphia and New York, and he moved from Cumberland to Philadelphia. In the first year he reduced the time for transporting the mail between the two cities from twenty-three to sixteen hours, and soon thereafter to twelve hours. He soon became the owner of most of the lines running out of Philadelphia and New York, and the largest mail contractor in the United States. He employed in this service more than one thousand horses and four hundred men. The wagoner soon became the "Land Admiral," a title given him by the press in recognition of his energy and ability. [Illustration: JAMES REESIDE.]