James Columbus Venable was born on October 14, 1857, to Martha A. B. Justice and John Moorman Venable Jr. He was the sixth of their nine sons. He spent his childhood on his father’s farm, close to the Justice family farm where his mother had been raised.

James was only ten years old when his mother died, and thirteen years old when his father remarried in 1869. By 1880, his father, stepmother, and some of his siblings had relocated to Gainesville, Hall County. James, however, chose to remain in Marcus and the farmlands of his mother’s family, living with his grandmother Susan Justice and his uncle John Gillam Justice, the owner of the “Jackson County Nursery”. Susan Melvina Justice Flanigan and her family, Mary Justice and Virginia “Jennie” Justice married to John Jackson Wallis and their families also lived there.

He lost his grandmother Susan Justice in 1881. He remained in the company of his sister Virginia.

He died on September 26, 1882, just weeks before his 25th birthday. James was laid to rest in the Justice Cemetery, near his mother’s and grandmother's grave . His sister Jennie Wallis had him buried in the Wallis section of the cemetery. The cause of his death remains unknown.