Born to John Livergood and Hannah Himes of Pennsylvania who migrated to Saint Louis, Missouri. He joined the Missouri Militia and was assigned to Captain Baker's Company, 2nd Battalion, 25th Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Division.

October of 1837 he moved to the Zumwalt settlement on the Lavaca in Lavaca County, where in March of 1842 he was one of the first there to join a citizen's army that grouped together at San Antonio to run Mexican Army invaders, under command of General Vasquez, out of Texas.

Come September, word spread that San Antonio had once again been taken over and under command of Captain Zumwalt, John was elected a lieutenant, and they led the citizen's army back to the city to join Colonel Mathew Caldwell.

John was one thirty men who responded in November to President Sam Houston's call for two regiments, one of which he joined and served under Captain Charles K. Reese during the Somervell Expedition to Laredo. Once disbanded, he and three other men from the Zumwalt Settlement were captured as they joined the march on Mier.

He survived the march to Mexico City, drew a white bean during the Black Bean Episode, and was forced to Peyote Prison. While there, he got word to his mother of his situation, who then wrote to her brother George Himes in Pennsylvania, who asked for General Andrew Jackson's help. He was able to have John Livergood and 105 other men released from the prison.

Returning to the settlement on the Lavaca, John soon became a scout for Captain James Walker's Spy Company, under General Zachary Taylor, at the Rio Grande not long after the annexation of Texas. He and two other men reported back with news to General Taylor, and with that the company was able to stop and defeat General Arista of Mexico.

After the battle, he returned to Missouri to visit his mother and family where he met Sarah Ann Perkins, a native of Virginia. They married February 25, 1847.

On September 21, 1850, John was elected Chief Justice of Lavaca County and served for a short time before he resigned after many fights and arguments among the two towns of the county, Petersburg and Hallettsville, trying to decide which was to be the county seat. Later returning to politics, he was elected in 1854 for Justice for the Petersburg precinct and served for several terms. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he was elected Captain of Beat No. 3 Company, Lavaca County, Texas State Troops, and was commissioned as such by Governor F. R. Lubbock. The Lone Star Guards, as the county unit was called, were commanded by Major J. F. Spears. In 1863, while he still commanded the Beat No. 3 Company, John enlisted as a private in Spears' Company, Company C, 24th Regiment, Texas State Troops, for six months; on September 25, 1863, he enlisted for another six months period in Company D of the same regiment commanded by Captain John R. Borden, and trained at Camp Terry in Jackson County.

John and Sarah were two of the charter members of The Mossy Grove Methodist Church, which was organized in 1855. In a plot adjacent to the church is where they buried their family, among them John Himes Livergood, a strong, noble, God-fearing Texan.