James Lawrence Tubbs, son of Samuel Tubbs (a soldier of the war of 1812) and Polly Frost, was born at Augusta, New York, September 10, 1824; came with parents in 1843 to Lafayette; qualified himself as a surveyor, and in time, as a civil engineer; married December 10, 1849, Anna Rebecca, only child of Dr. John Mathias Henderson and Samantha, daughter of Charles and Anna Hine; was elected eight times county surveyor, and served occasionally as undersheriff. At first a Democrat, he became a Free-Soiler* and then a Republican. In 1872 he supported Greeley and returned to the Democracy.
His profession brought him little revenue until past middle life, when he became more profitably occupied in laying out the village of Williams Bay, and in civil engineering work for Chicagoan owners of Geneva Lake (shore) property. He also began the compilation of a second general abstract of titles to county property, and this work had begun to bring him revenue before his death, which was September 6, 1899. Mrs. Tubbs was born at Willoughby, Ohio. December 13, 1830, and died at Elkhorn, December 25, 1904.
Mr. Tubbs was a lifelong student of pure mathematics, and even in latest years found much pleasure in the stud)- and master) of quaternions. His clerical habit was neat and exact, and his memory of the political events of his lime, of the actors therein, and of men who in earlier years had come to and gone from Walworth County was seldom matched.
*(A “Free-Soiler” was someone who opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States. They were primarily members of the Free soil Party, a political party active in the 1840s and 1850s. While some Free-Soiler’s were also abolitionists who wanted to end slavery entirely, others focused on preventing its spread to new states and territories.)
From: Beckwith, A.C. (1912). History of Walworth County Wisconsin