James Kirkpatrick oldest of seven children of Samuel Kirkpatrick and Ruth Weir Kirkpatrick was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 1791, and relocated to Ross County, Ohio, with his family as a child where he grew to manhood.

James Kirkpatrick married Jane Porter on February 23, 1815, the daughter of William and Margaret Clinton Porter of Hamilton County, Ohio, both natives of Ireland.

James Kirkpatrick and Jane Porter Kirkpatrick were the parents of eleven children, eight who grew to adults and three children who died in their youth. Samuel Clinton, Elizabeth, William Porter, Margaret Ann, Mary Jane, John Clinton, James Wesley, Maria Jane, Austin Wilson and two infant sons.

On James Kirkpatrick's pension application, it states he served our country in the War of 1812 as a Waggoner. His pension was applied for many years after the war, and after he had settled in Illinois.

James was the owner of an estate of eleven thousand acres of fine, improved land near New Holland, Ross County, Ohio. The old mansion there is still standing. He was an extensive Live Stock Trader, driving his flocks of cattle, sheep and geese to New York returning with large quantities of silks and provisions. He had money borrowed from the Government Bank, and when he arrived in New York in 1837, the bank had been vetoed, and his property was sold as a great sacrifice. Other investments resulted in financial failure that resulted in his decision to relocate to Indiana. (Shobe, Dilling, Kirkpatrick, 1919 Book.)

James and Jane Kirkpatrick, their family along with his brothers, Samuel and Benjamin, and their families all moved to Indiana in 1843, and settled on the land which is now the site of Lafayette, Indiana, in Tippecanoe County. Jane Porter Kirkpatrick died in Tippecanoe County, Indiana in 1848, at the home of her sister and family who migrated with her to Indiana.

James and family remained in Tippecanoe County until after the 1850 Census at which time, James and children moved to Urbana, Illinois.

James Kirkpatrick died on March 3, 1872, at the home of his youngest child, Austin Wilson Kirkpatrick of Mayview, Illinois. He rests at the Mount Olive Cemetery in Mayveiw, Illinois, where a large stone marks his grave.