As a teenager, James visited his father's homestead in Clay County, where he was pulled into the violence of defending family honor.
Burns survived four years of feuding; after a close call, he had a religious experience that prompted him to stop fighting and resume his studies.
His father, Hugh Burns, a farmer and Primitive Baptist minister, had moved there from Clay County, Kentucky.
He spent his summer digging ginseng roots and earned enough money to buy books and his first pair of store-bought shoes.
When he and several relatives attacked a cabin on Newfound Creek, Burns was hit over the head and left for dead.
[1] Burns returned to West Virginia, made a public profession of faith in Christ and was baptized.
During the school year 1897–1898 Burns taught at Berea College, where he met H. L. McMurray, a Baptist preacher from Kansas.
They became close friends and Burns told McMurray about the vision God had given him for the children of the Clay County Mountains.
Around 50 men from both sides of the feud gathered to hear Burns speak about his dream of building a Christian school.
After several minutes of silence two men, Lee Combs and Frank Burns, from opposite sides of the feud came to the middle of the room and shook hands.
Burns and McMurray went up Sandlin Hill, climbed an oak tree, looked down on Oneida and picked a site for the school.
Frank Burns crossed the frozen river in his wagon loaded with logs he had removed from the loft of his cabin.
In the spring of 1900, Dr. Carter Jones invited Burns to speak to the State Board of Missions meeting in Louisville.
After hearing Burns speak in New York City, Elizabeth Anderson gave $5,300 to buy a farm.
An article, "Burns of the Mountains" written by Emerson Hough, appeared in American Magazine in 1912.
Hough told how Burns had stopped the feuds and built a school for the mountain children in Clay County.
The Chautauqua and Lyceum Lecture Bureaus offered to pay Burns a salary, railroad fare and expenses.
In October 1920, Burns suffered a mental and physical breakdown due to overwork and complications from influenza.
The new house was constructed on the hill overlooking the campus where Burns and McMurray had selected the site for the school.
The final services were in the school chapel on Friday afternoon with a great funeral oration by Dr. Elmer Gabbard, President of Witherspoon College, Buckhorn, Kentucky.
Burial was on Cemetery Hill in Oneida, overlooking the buildings and grounds of the institution into which went his life and through which he forever lives".