Guinn, J. M. (James Miller), 1834-1918

Guinn was Secretary of the Historical Society of Southern California.

James Miller Guinn (aka J.M. Guinn), was a prominent educator and historian in southern California during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Guinn maintained an active role in his community, having membership in several local historical and fraternal societies, and kept lifelong affiliations with the Presbyterian Church and the Republican Party. By the end of his life, Guinn had produced a voluminous literature on California and its prominent residents. Born in Houston, Ohio on November 27, 1834, Guinn grew up working on his family's farm, garnering his primary education during the winter school sessions. He became a teacher at eighteen years old, a vocation he utilized to earn his way through college - first at Antioch, and later at Oberlin. When the news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached Guinn at Oberlin in 1861, he immediately volunteered to fight for the Union Army, serving as a member of Company C of the Seventh Ohio Infantry. He participated in the early West Virginia campaign, serving under Rosecrans, then later under McClellan. During this campaign, Guinn's company saw heavy combat in the battles of Green Lane, Winchester, Cedar Mountain, Antietam, and Gettysburg. At Cedar Mountain, Guinn was only one of six soldiers from his unit to emerge unhurt. After Gettysburg, his superiors promoted Guinn to corporal and sent his regiment to serve under William Tecumseh Sherman in the Tennessee and Georgia campaigns. During this service, Guinn again saw fighting at the battles of Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge, and Ringgold. He mustered out in June 1864.

In poor health after leaving the army, Guinn traveled to California by way of Panama. Shortly after settling and finding a teaching position in Alameda County, however, Guinn got wind of gold finds in Idaho and walked three hundred miles to the Boise Basin to seek his fortune. After failing to strike it rich after three years of mining, Guinn returned to California, this time to the southern portion of the state. Here he took a position as the superintendent of Anaheim schools. The administrator took a fancy to a young teacher in the Anaheim schools, Dapsiliea Marquis, whom he married in 1874. The marriage produced three children: daughters Mabel Elizabeth and Edna Marquis (deceased at Guinn's death), and son Howard James. In 1873, he narrowly lost an election to the state assembly. In 1881, after Anaheim schools showed marked improvement, the city of Los Angeles hired Guinn to superintend their school system. After two years in this position, Guinn shifted his vocational interests into real estate and merchandising, although he maintained a strong interest in Los Angeles' history and educational facilities for the remainder of his life. Guinn was a long time (and founding) member of the Stanton Post (Los Angeles) chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was a member of the American Historical Association, a founding member of the Historical Society of Southern California, an officer in the Pioneers of Los Angeles County, served on the LA Board of Education between 1904 and 1914, and received a gubernatorial appointment to serve on the California Historical Commission in 1914. As an historian, Guinn became very prolific towards the end of his life, producing a number of massive volumes on numerous California counties and notable residents after the turn of the century. Guinn died at his home in Highland Park after a short illness in September 1918, weeks shy of his eighty-fourth birthday.