Born at Cherry Valley, New York, February 26, 1832. At four years of age Mr. Skillen moved with his parents to Greene, Chenango county, New York, where he continued to reside about twenty years, or until 1850. The next two years were spent in Waverly, Iowa., where he worked with W. P. Harmon, the founder of that town, returning at the end of the two years to his boyhood home. Here he again lived until after his marriage to Miss Lucinda Adams, which occurred October 2, 1862. Immediately after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Skillen came to Iowa to the then new West, settling on a farm which Mr. Skillen purchased near Tripoli. Two years later Mr. Skillen came to Waverly, where he continued to reside till the time of his death. James A. Skillen was of a family of thirteen children, being of Scotch-Irish parentage. He was a man of strict integrity, honored, respected, and trusted, not only by his fellow townsmen, but by the citizens of Bremer county, who sent him to represent them in 1872-3 in the Fourteenth Iowa Assembly. Cyrus C. Carpenter was governor at that time. During his legislative term he served on the committee on highways, and was an influential member of that body. He voted for the abolition of capital punishment and was an earnest advocate of progress in educational affairs, advocating, along with other things, an act establishing public libraries in the townships and independent school districts of the state. He also had a large part in the formulation and success of a measure in making the state historical society the valuable institution that it is today. As a legislator he was also one of the makers of the Code of 1873. For six years prior to his death Mr. Skillen was president of the Waverly Savings Bank. He had the confidence of the people of his county in a remarkable degree, and in both public and private matters was true to every trust that was reposed in his hands. As his record as a legislator was without a blemish so was his private life without stain.