James Addison Bushnell was born July 27, 1826 near Fredonia, Chatauqua County, New York, son of Daniel Edwin and Ursula Pratt Bushnell. Hs mother was the daughter of Osias Pratt, a sea captain. Both parents were of Puritan ancestry. James was the seventh son of a family of ten children. His father moved soon after his birth to Monroe, Ashtabula County, Ohio. This part or the country was called the Western Reserve.
James attended his first school at Monroe, Ohio, but when he was about ten years old the family moved to Conneant, where they remained a year. Then, seeking a warmer climate, since Daniel Bushnell suffered from rheumatism, they moved to Canton, Stark County, Ohio, where they wintered, then moved on to Harrison County, where Mr. Bushnell bought a mill. However, he sold it in l841 and moved to the small town of Franklin, where he intended to take up his trade of cooper (a barrel-maker). He died there in 1842 leaving his wife with ten children.
At the time of his father's death, James was about 16 years old. He went to work at once as a cooper. In June 1844 the family moved to Kirksville, Missouri. James worked at Hannibal, Missouri making barrels and saved enough money to buy 80 acres of land in Adair County. In September 1849 he married Elizabeth C. Adkins and built a home on his land. His first son, Charles Alvah, was born there March 26, 1851.
In the spring of 1852 James Addison Bushnell, brother of George Edwin, left his young wife and baby son in Illinois to cross the plains to Oregon. He traveled on to California to seek his fortune in the gold fields. He did fairly well and wrote to his wife and mother to come to Oregon.
The mail service was very uncertain and not having heard from his family he took his $400 and started home via the Isthmus of Panama. When he reached Illinois, he learned that his wife, his infant son Charles Alvah, his mother, sister and brothers were already on the trail to Oregon, James at once went to New York and caught a steamer for Panama, crossed the Isthmus, took another steamer to San Francisco, transferred there to a steamer for Oregon City, and at last reached Mahlon Harlow's home at the Forks of the Willamette in Lane County, Oregon, with no money at all.
Bushnell learned that his wife, his infant son Charles Alvah, his mother, sister and brothers had been on The Lost Wagon Train of 1853.
Once in Lane County, Bushnell found his wife and small son at the home of Isaac Briggs who lived in what is now Springfield, Oregon. He took up a claim near Irving and later bought the Judkins claim near Eugene.
Elizabeth Adkins Bushnell died in 1868 and he married, on April 2, 1870, Mrs. Sarah Ferrill Powell Page who, although only 24 years old, had been widowed twice, She had come to Oregon in The Lost Wagon Train of 1853 with relatives. This is the same wagon train in which James' first wife, his mother and others of his family had traveled.
James Addison Bushnell was one of the founders of the Eugene Divinity School (later Northwest Christian College and then Northwest Christian University). Until his death he was president of its board of regents. In March of 2020, NWCU was renamed Bushnell University in his honor.

In the year 1881 James lost 3 of his children to diphtheria. Henry came home from school in early December ill with the disease. He and "Ollie" both survived. Walter Scott died December 24, 1881, Mary died December 31, 1881 and George Addison "Addie" died January 10, 1882.
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"Illustrated History of Lane County, Oregon." Portland, Oregon: A. G. Walling,
publisher, 1884. pg. 486.

JAMES A. BUSHNELL
Was born in Cattaraugus county, New York, July 27, 1826, removing with his parents when quite young to Ashtabula county, Ohio, moving again in his thirteenth year to Harrison county, where, his father dying in 1841, the mother with five children once more changed their residence, settled near Kirksville, Missouri, where the subject of this sketch was married September 7, 1849, to
Miss Elizabeth C. Adkins. In the spring of 1852 leaving his wife and child, he started with an ox team to make a home in Oregon, and arrived in Salem September ninth; spending the winter of that year in the mines of California, he returned in the fall of 1855 to meet his family, and settled upon the donation claim now occupied by Wm. McConnell, about six miles south of Junction City, from which he removed in 1865 to the farm which he at present owns, situated four miles in a southeasterly direction from Junction City, comprising about six hundred acres of the finest land. His first wife dying, January 2, 1868, he married Mrs. Sarah E. Page, of Halsey, April 2, 1870. Leaving the farm in 1875 he moved into town and erected the residence, as well as a warehouse which he owns and operates.~~~~~