James died of a heart attack in a cotton field in Pilot Point, Texas on October 14th, 1895 at the age of 61. He is buried in Ballew Cemetery near Aubrey, Texas.

After thirty years--the last fifteen there in Texas--James was suddenly gone from Margaret's life. All those years of clearing, tilling, planting, irrigating, and otherwise improving the land for others, were hard on James--a guy who had to grow up too quickly when his father died.

He never could get over the unfavorable land deal he had made. They gave up a life in the fertile lands of southern Minnesota for a future in this dry and often dusty place called Northern Texas.

He and Margaret knew the sad truth that their land in Plainview--the only land they owned--the land they had never reached--was absolutely the worst land known in these parts, if not just about anywhere.

The family had neither the desire nor the funds to finish the journey to Plainview.