James Guyton was born in 1833 in Dublin, Ireland, he came to America at the age of 16. From the time he left home to the end of his life, he never again saw a member of his family. Little is known of them. He is known to have mentioned two younger brothers, Peter and Dick, and a sister, Mary. His father was a writer who contributed to the magazines of his day. He is known to have mentioned a titled uncle (hereditary title), who was inordinately proud of his social position that he lost his mind. Since his father was a younger son, there was no inheritance for him. James Guyton too, was a younger son; therefore he came to America to make a life for himself. One of the pleasant memories of his departure from Liverpool, England (his family had moved from Dublin, Ireland to Birmingham, England) was the fact that his half brother John McCall ( His mother's son from a previous marriage), who went down to see him off, gave him his overcoat because it was cold. He went first, upon arriving in America, to New York where he called on relatives named Shean, one of who was a senator. They were people of means and gave their penniless caller a cool reception. He made no further efforts to contact them and went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he learned the shoe manufacturing business. He then went to Winchester, Kentucky, where he operated a shoe factory of his own. It was here that he met and married Lucy Attersall. Later, he bought the country home of General Blackwell and tried his hand at farming. When his house burned, he built a house at nearby Haden's Corner. A tradition in the family is that the name Guyton was originally spelled "GUITON". It is said that a sign painter misspelled the name when he painted a sign for the factory and that, to avoid confusion, James Guyton adopted the misspelled name for his own. According to a Niece who lived in Winchester, Kentucky, James Guyton was a popular man in Winchester. His ready wit made him a favorite with everyone. The invention of machines for making shoes made it unprofitable for him to continue his factory in which shoes were made by hand; therefore, in 1881, he moved to Dallas, Texas, where he engaged in the real estate business. In later years, he returned to Ireland and England with the hope of finding members of his family. A friend of the family, who remembered him, told him that one relative had gone to the gold fields of Africa, another to Australia. Aside from this meager information, he could learn nothing about them. He did not remain long in England because his heart was now in America and even the manner of speech of the English people seemed strange to him. He died in Dallas, Texas, Jan. 22 1920 and was buried in Winchester, Kentucky