James Tarlton was born in Kentucky in 1787. In November 1835 he came to Texas in command of a company of 36 volunteer riflemen from Kentucky. The Alamo had already fallen when the company reached Texas. General Sam Houston sent Captain Tarleton to Goliad with dispatches for Col. James Fannin. He was one of Sam Houston’s staff officers and was on the battlefield at San Jacinto.
After the war he lived in Ft. Bend County and Houston, moving to Bonham in 1858 with his son Robert. (His wife had died in Kentucky).
An article in the Bonham News of March 30, 1909 by Judge W. A. Evans recounts that in 1858 General Sam Houston visited Bonham as a guest of Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Alexander and made a speech in a grove of trees. [This article is the only record we have of the visit of Sam Houston to Bonham.]
Col. Tarlton visited Gen. Houston at Mr. Alexander’s and next day, I believe, the family carried Col. Tarlton and the General in their family carriage to the grove where the speaking came off. Col. Tarlton occupied a seat on the platform near the speaker and when General Houston was speaking of the hardships and struggles of that war shared by him and Col. Tarlton and of their retreat and the great battles which together they had fought, great tears would run down the cheeks of that grand old man and he endorsed all that Houston said about that great war campaign. It was rather a pathetic scene to see this old grey hair man sitting and listening to his comrade in arms, as he recited the scenes through which they had passed, the privations they had endured in order to give freedom to the people to whom the address was made, though 21 years had passed, yet to see them meet, to see the tears come to the eyes and the bosom heave with emotion as memory carried them, through scenes of the past, was a solemn sight.Sam Houston
James Tarleton died in Bonham on April 4, 1861 and was buried at Inglish Cemetery. A historical marker adorns his grave. We do not know why he moved to Bonham in the later years of his life.
