Eutaw Banks... Their Story as Suggested by the WCB Photo Albums (PDF files on CD-ROM)

James Oliver Banks II, youngest child of James Oliver and Martha Jane Coleman Banks, was born on December 26, 1865. When his mother died of typhoid fever in 1868, his father apparently decided to start again and build a new family. James' older sister and brother, Mary Gray (16) and Willis Alston (11), were sent to boarding schools in the East and James Oliver (2) was sent to Greene County, Alabama, to be raised by his spinster aunt Rhoda Coleman and bachelor uncle Wiley Coleman.

James Oliver attended the prestigious Tutwiler's School for Boys in Green Springs, Alabama, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Alabama. He became an astute business man, reputed to be the "meanest man in all of Greene County" and one of the wealthiest. He inherited his uncle's plantation Grassdale in 1892, his aunt's townhouse in Eutaw in 1900, and a nice inheritance from his father, James O. Banks Sr, in 1904.

James Oliver married Julia Coleman in 1888. The couple had nine children: (1) Wilkes Coleman (1889-1963); (2) Wiley Coleman (1890-1893); (3) James Oliver III (1892-1892); (4) Ellen Gray (1893-1976); (5) Willis Alston (1895-1982 ); (6) Hampden Osborne (1897-1966 ); (7) Julia Coleman (1898-1899); (8) John Coleman (1899-1969 ); and (9) Ralph Roundtree (1901-1959 ).

Julia Coleman Banks died on January 19, 1903, at the age of 36. Three years later in 1906, James Oliver married one of Ellen Gray's governesses, Sally Buck. James Oliver Banks II died on April 29, 1941, in Eutaw.