LATIMER, JAMES L. (1783-1861). James L. Latimer, early settler, son of Witherel and Abigail (Fitch) Latimer, was born in New London, Connecticut, on December 30, 1783. He moved to North Carolina, where he married Jane Hamilton, sister of Robert Hamilton, on July 19, 1803. They later moved to Carroll County, Tennessee. In April 1833 Latimer, eleven of his fifteen children, and more than fifty slaves left Tennessee for Texas. They came by way of Chickasaw Bluffs, Little Rock, and Washington, Arkansas, crossed the Red River at the mouth of Mill Creek in December 1833, and settled at Round Grove, five miles east of the site of present Clarksville. In 1834 or 1835 Latimer represented Miller County, Arkansas, in the Arkansas legislature; his son, Albert Hamilton Latimer, represented Red River County at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Latimer died on August 3, 1861, at his home near Clarksville.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pat B. Clark, The History of Clarksville and Old Red River County (Dallas: Mathis, Van Nort, 1937). Rex W. Strickland, Anglo-American Activities in Northeastern Texas, 1803-1845 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1937).
