James Edmund Callaway was born July 7, 1834 in Trigg County, Kentucky. The Callaway family moved to Illinois in 1848. He became a lawyer in Tuscola, Illinois. After the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Callaway was selected by his peers to serve as captain for a company of volunteer soldiers. In June, Ulysses S. Grant mustered Company D of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers into the Union Army and assigned them to the Army of the West. Callaway received several field commissions during the Civil War, eventually reaching the rank of Colonel and serving as adjutant to General Grant. Calloway was honorably discharged from the Twenty-first Illinois Regiment immediately following the surrender of Confederate forces.
Callaway returned to practice law in Illinois and was elected to the Illinois legislature. In March 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him Secretary of the Montana Territory. He continued to serve as Territorial Secretary until 1877, when President Grant left office. Callaway was appointed United States Attorney for Montana’s First District in 1878 and 1879. He served as a delegate to the Montana constitutional conventions in 1884 and 1889. The 1889 convention promulgated the state’s first constitution. In 1885 Callaway won office to the territorial legislature and became the first Republican to serve as Speaker of the House in Montana. He served just one term in the territorial legislature.
James Callaway married Mary E. Link in 1866 and the couple raised four children. Upon his appointment as territorial secretary, Callaway settled his family in Virginia City. He established a law practice in that locale and continued to pursue this profession throughout his political career. He closed the law practice 1898 as a result of failing health. James E. Callaway died of heart failure on August 21, 1905. Llewellyn L. Callaway, oldest son of James and Mary, was born on December 15, 1868. He followed his father into the legal profession, establishing practices in Virginia City and White Sulpher Springs, Montana. Llewellyn L. Callaway died in 1951.
From the guide to the Callaway Family Papers, 1861-1904, (University of Montana--Missoula Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections)
