James, the youngest child of James and Jane CLIMO, was born at Picton on 22 February 1862. He spent all his childhood in the Marlborough Sounds, eventually becoming a bushman and saw-mill worker, like his father and brothers. He went with his family to Ormond where a great affinity with his older brother Sam developed. James continued to live with Sam and and his wife Johanna on their return to Havelock, until he married and had a home of his own. On 27 May 1884 ? only four days before the death of his mother Jane in Inglewood ? James married Elizabeth Aby AROA at the office of the Registrar in Havelock. The young couple then moved to Okaramaio, not far from the fifty acre section on the Picton Road which Elizabeth?s father had drawn in a land ballot. Aroa, on finding his property was a flax swamp sold it within six months but it was later part of the area which supported a flax mill.

James and Elizabeth had one son, James Robert and they lived and worked at Okaramaio until Elizabeth?s death. Father and son continued to live together until James Robert reached adulthood, when they began working together as a team. They worked in both flax and timber mills, James Snr once joining in a bush felling gang with his nephew Harry POPE & Bert RUTLAND as contractors. Father and son were also part of the team at Richard CLIMO?s mill at Okoha, before eventually moving north to the King Country mills at Ohakune and Raurimu. At Raurimu, their roles were reversed ? James Robert became the ?boss? and his father, the engine driver. After the Raurimu mill was sold, James Robert and his second wife, Gladys followed James to Cambridge to farm with him. James was now getting on in age but still helped with mechanical work. Later the family moved to Paeroa and Waihi and by 1936 James had gone to live with his sister Jane in Hamilton ? her husband Frank POPE had died that year.

James died in 1937 in the Waikato Hospital in Hamilton, while Jane was away on holiday, recovering from nursing her husband and brother. James is buried in Hamilton East Cemetery.