James Ward was born in Sheffield in about 1815.  Little is known about his early life, but in 1843 (soon after his marriage) he joined the exodus of  Sheffield cutlers to America.  By about 1850, he has settled in Matteawan (a village north of New York City), where Sheffielders (including Thomas J. Bradley) had established a co-operative cutlery venture.  When these cutlers moved to Walden in Orange County, New York, James moved with them (Newman, 2001¹).  In 1860, the US Census enumerated James and his wife Caroline in Montgomery, Orange, New York.  Ward soon left Walden for Bronxville (Westchester County, NY), where he established his own enterprise.  J. Ward & Co was one of the largest cutlery factories in the USA and employed 175 workers.  Ward’s speciality was pen and pocket knives.  These included a 5-piece presentation knife (4¼-inches closed and worked in gold and mother-of-pearl) which was presented to Abraham Lincoln in June 1864 on  a visit to Philadelphia.  It was marked ‘J. Ward & Co, Bronxville, New York’.  When it was auctioned in New York in 1989 – alongside a handwritten letter of thanks from Lincoln – it fetched nearly $100,000.  
 
Ward’s business declined after the Civil War and by 1867 he was running a cutlery retailers and importers in Boston known as Ward, Merriam & Co.  His partners were Edwin A. Merriam, Charles S. Perley, and Charles W. Jenks.  Ward’s involvement was brief:  by 1870, he was living with Caroline in Jersey City, New Jersey, and working as a cutlery importer.  Later in his life, he returned to Matteawan to run a cutlery store.  Caroline died there on 23 February 1890, aged 73.  James’s death was reported in The Sheffield Independent, 7 August 1896.  He was the uncle of Maurice Ward, who was the Sheffield office manager of Alfred Field & Co.

^1. Newman, Marc, Walden and Maybrook (2001)