James Merrill Safford (1822–1907) was an American geologist, chemist and university professor.

James M. Safford was born in Putnam, Ohio on August 13, 1822.

[2] Safford taught at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee from 1848 to 1873.

[4][5] He served as a professor of mineralogy, Botany, and Economical Geology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee from 1875 to 1900.

[4] Additionally, he acted as a chemist for the Tennessee Bureau of Agriculture in the 1870s and 1880s.