James Appleton

Brigadier General James Appleton (February 14, 1785 – August 25, 1862) was an American abolitionist, early supporter of temperance, and politician from Maine.

Early life Appleton was born on February 14, 1785, in Ipswich, Massachusetts, on a family farm that had been granted to his ancestor, Samuel Appleton, in 1636. and his younger brothers were Timothy Appleton (1778–1857) and Samuel Appleton (1771–1852).

His paternal grandparents were Elizabeth Sawyer (1709–1785) and Isaac Appleton (1704–1794), the son of Isaac Appleton (1664–1747) and Priscilla Baker, granddaughter of Lt. Gov. Samuel Symonds. and earned the rank of Lieutenant colonel with the Massachusetts Militia and was later promoted to the rank of Brigadier general. He commanded actions at Sandy Bay in September 1814 and Gallop's Folly in October 1814. The report was considered by Neal Dow to be the first official document in the history of Maine prohibiting the liquor traffic. In 1848, he was a Free Soil presidential elector supporting Martin Van Buren. He retired back to Ipswich, buying out his father's surviving heirs and became the sole owner of Appleton Farm in 1857. He died there in 1862.

Descendants Through his son, Daniel, he was the grandfather of 36 including Francis Randall Appleton, a noted New York society man during the Gilded Age.

Honors The Woman's Relief Corps gave a marker on Ipswich's North Green, named in honor of Appleton and in memory of the unknown soldiers and sailors of the Civil War.