Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Thoburn, James Mills
THOBURN, James Mills, M. E. bishop, b. in
St. Clairsville, Ohio, 7 March, 1836. He was
graduated at Alleghany college. Pa., in 1857, and
began preaching in Ohio as a Methodist minister
in the same year. In 1859 he went to India as a
missionary, where he was stationed successively at
Nynee Tal, Moradabad, Lucknow, and Calcutta.
He preached in
both the native
and European
languages, and built
the largest church
in India. He was
presiding elder of
the Indian conference,
preached for
some time at Simla,
the summer capital
of India, and
was for five years
editor of the
“Indian Witness.” In
consequence of an
injury that resulted
from an
accident, he returned
to this country in
1886. At the
general conference of
the Methodist Episcopal church in New York city
in 1888 he was elected missionary bishop of India
and Malaysia. He has published “My Missionary
Apprenticeship,” being a history of twenty-five
years' experience in India (New York, 1884), and
“Missionary Sermons” (1888).