James Monroe Trotter (1842-1892) was born in Gulfport, Mississippi to slave owner Richard S. Trotter and a slave named Letitia. Letitia, along with her two sons, James Monroe and Charles Trotter, escaped on the Underground Railroad to Cincinnati , Ohio. James attended the Gilmer School in that city. He later received teacher education training at The Albany Academy in Athens County, Ohio. He used this training to teach in schools for colored persons in the Ohio counties of Pike and Muskingham, and in Ross county at Chillicothe. It was during his time in Chillicothe that he met his future wife Virginia Isaacs. Miss Isaacs was, according to family tradition, the great-grand daughter of President Thomas Jefferson and Mary Hemings, the sister of Sally Hemings. Upon completing his military service he returned to Chillicothe where he married Virginia Isaacs in 1868. The couple moved to Massachusetts, where James became the first man of color to be employed by the United States Post Office (USPS) in Boston. They soon became the parents of three children, one of whom would later become the renowned Boston newspaper editor and human rights activist William Monroe Trotter. After years of service with the USPS, James found that he was not being promoted as were white co-workers of equal years of service. In an act of protest, he resigned rather than continue in an inferior position. A multi-talented man, James was the author of a book entitled Music and Some Highly Musical People, published in 1880. The book is the first comprehensive study of music ever written in the United States. It is still used today by those who are interested in music history and tracing the origins of music, especially African-American music. It has been reissued at least two times. The last time was in 1981. Another landmark accomplishment for him was his appointment by President Grover Cleveland to the office of Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia in 1887, the highest office to be held by a man of color at that time, and an honor shared by two other prominent men of color of that era, Fredrick Douglass (1881-1886) and Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce (1891-1893). "James Monroe Trotter (1842-1892) was a prominent 19th century civil rights advocate. He came to Boston to join the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the first African-American corps of soldiers in the Civil War. After the war, Trotter became the highest ranking African-American in the federal government in his position as Federal Recorder of Deeds. He was the father of civil-rights leader William Monroe Trotter." The Bostonian Society, 2007