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The fourth of eight children born to Leonard Edelen and Susan Bruce was James Henry Edelen, born in Lebanon in 1833. He was raised and educated in that town. The town of Harrodsburg, in Mercer County, Kentucky, is only about 20 miles north-east of Lebanon, however, and it was in that town that James spent much of his time. There he met and married a young lady, Mary Samuel Lewis. Their wedding occurred on 21 January 1855, when James was 22 and Mary was nineteen.The Lewis family was descended from John Lewis, of Wales, who came to Henrico County, Virginia, sometime before 1660. Mary S. Lewis was born in Harrodsburg on 6 October 1835, the eldest of three daughters born to Thomas Porter Lewis and Arethasa Boyle Yantis.
Following his marriage to Mary Samuel Lewis, James Henry Edelen returned to Lebanon in the Spring of 1858. He worked there as a druggist. James and Mary were the parents of only two children, Sallie and Thomas Lewis Edelen. They raised their family amidst the turmoil that Kentucky became during the Civil War, although there is no record of the Edelen family serving directly in those hostilities. Mary Edelen died in Lebanon in 1887 and James married, as his second wife, Laura Bell in 1899. He died in Lebanon in 1902.