History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison and Nicholas Counties, Kentucky, ed. by William Henry Perrin, O. L. Baskin & Co., Chicago, 1882. p. 732. [Nicholas County] [Carlisle City and Precinct]

JUDGE A. J. BANTA, Judge of the County and Quarterly Courts, P. O. Carlisle, was born in Bourbon County, Aug. 2, 1824 (see Peter Banta's history); he received a common school education, assisting his father until the year 1842, when he engaged in farming on his own account, removing to Nicholas County in February, 1846. He was married on Oct. 5, 1846, in Flat Rock, to Elizabeth Johnson of Bourbon County; where she was born in November 1824, to John and Lettie (Call) Johnson, natives of Bourbon. Her parents both died in 1833 of cholera. By this union there have been four children, two of whom died in their infancy; those living are: Letitia J., wife of M. A. Glenn, a farmer of Nicholas; and John P., farming in Bates County, Mo. Mr. Banta and family are of the Christian faith, religiously, and Democratic politically. He was Sheriff of the county at the breaking out of the late war, but was compelled by order of the Federal troops to relinquish his office, which proved disastrously to him in a financial point of view. He espoused the cause of the Confederacy, enlisting in 1862 in the 9th Kentucky Regiment, was made First Lieutenant of Company B., but on account of bad health was appointed to
the commissary department for general supplies for the Southern Army, in which he served until the close of the war, when he returned home and engaged in farming and distilling. He is now engaged in various other pursuits besides his judicial duties.