546 MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF DISTINGUISHED MISSOURIANS
BY DANIEL M. GRISSOM
THIRD ARTICLE
JAMES S. ROLLINS
James S. Rollins of Boone county was one of the great
men of Missouri. He had the opportunity, which he faithfully improved, of doing much for the state, and in Central
Missouri (which he represented in Congress) but chiefly in
Columbia, where his name is so intimately associated with the
State University, he is remembered with a gratitude and
affection to which nothing could be added, and from which
nothing can be taken. In the early part of his public career,
he was called "Jim" Rollins by the personal friends who
recognized in him the capacities for usefulness which he
afterwards developed, and who were fortunate in possessing
the friendship of a young man of such noble qualities and
such high promise; later on, he was known as "Rollins of
Boone," because he had come to be so constantly and honorably associated with measures for the interest of the good
old county, that it seemed he and it had been born for one
another; and later still, when the promise of his youth had
ripened into the full usefulness which his friends looked for,
he came to be known as Major Rollins.
He was tall and erect in person and full of form, without
being even inclined to portliness; and few men could be
more at ease, or present a better appearance on a platform,
addressing a popular audience. In early life he was a Whig
and continued so, as long as there was any Whiggey left to
stand by; but when the dominant party in Missouri became
divided into Benton Democrats and Anti-Benton Democrats,
without becoming a Benton Democrat, his views on slavery
and the Kansas-Nebraska question brought him into friendly
