SILKMAN, James Bailey, lawyer, born in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, 9 October, 1819; died in New York city, 4 February, 1888. He was graduated at Yale in 1845, studied law, and after laboring as a journalist was admitted to the bar in 1850, soon establishing a good practice. Prior to the civil war he caused much excitement by introducing resolutions against slavery in the New York diocesan convention of the Protestant Episcopal church. After the war he became greatly interested in religious matters, and was at one time identified with the Fulton street prayer-meeting. Subsequently he was converted to Spiritualism, and remained until his death one of its foremost adherents. So pronounced were his views on this subject that his family had him examined to decide with regard to his sanity, and in 1883 he was committed to the Utica asylum. From this decision he appealed, and after a long litigation in the courts he recovered a verdict of $15,000 damages against his son and his son-in-law for false imprisonment. An appeal from this verdict was pending at the time of his death. On being released from Utica he reopened his law-office and recovered a portion of his practice, but made it thenceforth the chief aim of his life to procure the release of those inmates of the Utica asylum that he claimed were unjustly confined. In this, owing to his ability as a lawyer and his persistence in everything he undertook, he was unusually successful, and a number were released at different times through his efforts.