U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Latham, George Robert (1832-1917) ------------------------------------------------------------------- The History of Upshur County West Virginia From its Earliest Exploration and Settlement to the Present Time by W. B. Cutright Buckhannon, W. Va., July 1, 1907 Pages 494-495 GEORGE ROBERT LATHAM, born March 9, 1832, in Prince William County, Va. The son of John Latham and Juliet A. Newman, he is the third of ten children, eight of whom grew to manhood and womanhood. At the breaking out of the Civil War, four of the five brothers entered the Union army. His father was a farmer and he was reared on the farm. In 1849, his father moved with his family to Taylor County, in Western Virginia. The son came with the father and being very studious and having a good memory, he availed himself and made most out of the limited means of acquiring an education then extant. In 1850 he took down with pleurisy and was totally disabled for farm work for three years. In 1852, he began teaching in Taylor and Barbour Counties and taught until the winter of 1859. December 24, 1857, he married Miss Caroline A. Thayer, a daughter of Franklin and Mary Thayer, then of Monongalia County, then Virginia. While teaching he had been studying law and in 1859, passed the examinations, was admitted to the Bar, and opened the first law office in Grafton. In 1860, he published the Western Virginian in the interest of the Presidential ticket, Bell and Everett. At the outbreak of the war he hoisted a United States flag over his law office and turned it into a recruiting station and by May the 20th, he had a full company enrolled, which afterwards became Company B., 2d Virginia Infantry, and was the first Union company recruited in the interior of the State. This company, under Mr. Latham, remained in Grafton to vote on the ordinance of secession. May 23d, after which he took his company, marched around the Confederates at Feterman and struck the 3 a.m. train the next morning for Wheeling. This company was ordered back to Grafton and from there sent to Philippi and took part in the three months' campaign to Carricks Ford, where the Confederate, General Garnett, was killed. In the fall of 1864, Col. Latham was elected a member of the Thirty- ninth Congress for the Second District of West Virginia, from March 4, 1865 to March 4, 1867. He was mustered out of the military service March 10, 1865, and was brevetted a brigadier general of volunteers. In Congress he acquitted himself eminently, as shown by his speeches delivered in the House on January 8, and May 28, 1866. He declined to be a candidate for renomination on account of bad health, but at the request of the Secretary of State, agreed to accept an appointment as United States Consul at Melbourne, Australia. This service continued three years from 1867 to 1870, and while in the United States service, he collected for his country, two claims, aggregating a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. In 1875, he was elected Superintendent of Public Schools of Upshur County, and in 1880, was appointed by President Hayes as Supervisor of the Census for the First District of West Virginia. He was wounded in the left foot at Lee's Spring, on the Rappahannock River in August, 1862. This wound gives him much trouble and pain at times now. Col. Latham has a wife and eight children living, four sons and four daughters, and he is now seventy-five years of age, and he and his wife are in the fiftieth year of their married life. Robert Latham came from England about the year 1700. He had a son Robert, who also had a son Robert, born 1769, died 1833. He had a son John, the father of Col. George R. Latham. Richard Thayer came from England before 1640, settling in New England. He had a son Richard, who had a son Nathaniel, who had a son Zachariah, who had a son Abel, who had a son Stephen, who had a son Franklin, who was the father of Mrs. Col. George R. Latham. The Colonel and his wife have eight children and thirteen grandchildren living, making seven generations of the Latham family and ten generations of the Thayer family, counting the two families, children and grandchildren of the Latham, grafted on the Thayer side. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Register of Deaths, Upshur County, WV (Page 18) FULL-NAME: Col. Geo. R. Latham BIRTH-PLACE: Va. AGE-AT-DEATH: 86 years DEATH-DATE: December 16, 1917 DEATH-PLACE: Upshur County MARITAL-STATUS: Married CAUSE-OF-DEATH: Old Age ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Upshur County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/upshur/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------