There is a very interesting article in the New York Times regarding his life and death. It does not tell who his parents were, but based on my research they were Phineas Freeland and Anna Walker who married at Hopkinton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts in 1793. Phineas managed a summer hotel at Claverack, Columbia County, New York and he appears on the U. S. Census of 1800 at that location. The census does not list spouses or family members until 1850, but there are other records availabe. James was a first cousin of my ancester John Augustus Freeland, Sr. (son of Leonard Freeland and Maria Van Deusen) and they later were dry goods merchants together in Manhattan for a period of time until John returned to live in Columbia County, New York in 1853 with his wife, daughter, and son because he was in poor health. John lived until December 1860.

James Freeland married Caroline Bowman Sept. 27, 1830 in Hudson, Columbia County, New York but they lived in Brooklyn, New York for most, or all, of their married life. They had a daughter and some sons. Only one child (a son) survived his parents. Late in life in 1869 James was appointed a district director of the Internal Revenue Service for Brooklyn and the rest of Long Island by President U. S. Grant at the urging of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher of the Plymouth Church where James was in charge of the financial affairs of the church along with Henry Bowen. This was the church in Brooklyn that was famous for its fight against slavery in the United States. People came from different parts of the world to hear Henry Ward Beecher preach and hold mock slave sales.

James had a very hard time with the job as Collector of Internal Revenue at Brooklyn and Long Island because he was very honest and members of his party wanted him ousted so that they could use patronage to their most crooked advantage. However, James resisted them cheered on by the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper who backed him 100%.

James Freeland and his family may have been on the trip that the Plymouth Church members took to the Holy Land in 1867 which has been written about by Mark Train who joined the Pilgrimage.

James outlived his wife by less than a year and his body was found by his widower son-in-law U. S. Army doctor, Dr. Charles Cogswell Jewett, who had been married to Annie Freeland who died in South Carolina at an early age. She was survived by a son, Freeland Jewett. James died at a hotel (The Mansion House) in Brooklyn where James lived at the time of his death after renting out his house.

James and his wife Caroline were held in the highest esteem by my ancestor, Eliza C. Bryan, first the wife of John Freeland, Sr. and then the wife of Joseph Simonson, Jr. Eliza had very strong likes and dislikes and there was little in-between in her opinions of people. Eliza left a diary for the year 1866 which mentions cousin James and his wife cousin Caroline which shows real warmth towards them. The Brooklyn Eagle also championed James Freeland in his decade long supervision of the District Internal Revenue Service Office at Brooklyn.

The U. S. Census of 1850 and 1860 finds Sophia Gifford, a widowed aunt of James, living with James and his family at Brooklyn. Sophia Freeland Gifford was born in 1783 in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. She does not show up on the U. S. Census of 1870 because she died a few months before it was taken. Her date of death was February 15, 1870. Her husband, Aaron Gifford, died in October of 1837 and is buried at the Dutch Reformed Church of Claverack burial ground. Sophia and Aaron had no children - or no children that survived for any length of time. Aaron had been a well-to-do businessman in the area around Claverack and part of a Quaker family that first settled in Massachusetts. I did not find a record of where Sophia (Freeland) Gifford was buried.