Latham, Robert B.

Born: 1818-06-21 Union County, Kentucky

Died: 1895-04-16 Logan County, Illinois

Flourished: Logan County, Illinois

At one year of age, Latham's father James moved his family to Illinois to settle at Elkhart Grove in present-day Logan County. Latham attended schools in Logan County, in Peoria, and in Kentucky before completing four terms of school in Springfield. While living in Springfield from 1834 to 1837, he gained the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln. As a large landowner, a successful businessman, and as sheriff of Logan County (1850-52), Latham encountered Lincoln frequently in local circuit courts. Latham was one of the original proprietors of the town of Lincoln, and he lived there from about 1854 until his death. He served one term in the Illinois House of Representatives, 1860-1862. At the close of his term in the General Assembly, Latham raised the 106th Illinois Infantry, and was commissioned the regiment's colonel. Latham was married to Georgiana P. Gillett, with whom he had three children before her death in 1853. In 1856, he remarried to Sevillah Wyatt, with whom he had five children. Latham was a Mason, and a charter member of the Lincoln Lodge. Religiously, Latham was an Episcopalian.

Georgiana Latham Gravestone, Latham Cemetery, Elkhart, IL; History of Logan County, Illinois (Chicago: Inter-State, 1886), 219, 228, 232, 448, 451, 491-93; John Clayton, comp., Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 223; Letters Testamentary, 7 May 1895, Executors Bond Record Book 2, 138, Logan County Court, Logan County Courthouse, Lincoln, IL; For Lincoln's cases involving Latham, search "Latham, Robert B.," Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org.