City of Clarksville
Clarksville, Red River County, Texas
Marker Inscription
City of Clarksville, incorporated December 29, 1837. Named in honor of James Clark, who settled near here in 1834.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Clarksville was incorporated on December 29, 1837, during the days of the Republic of Texas, and named in honor of James Clark, who had settled nearby in 1834. It grew into one of the earliest established towns of Northeast Texas.
Why it matters
Clarksville's founding marks the spread of organized American settlement into the young Republic of Texas, seeding communities that would endure into statehood.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · James Clark
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
David G. Burnet
Clarksville, TX
Born in New Jersey in 1788, David Gouverneur Burnet became a leading figure in Texas's fight for nationhood. He served as a convention delegate and judge before becoming interim president of the Republic of Texas from March to October 1836, in the tumultuous months surrounding independence. He later served as vice president and secretary of state of the young republic.
First Baptist Church of Clarksville
Clarksville, TX
A Kentucky minister and seven charter members founded this Baptist congregation in 1847, when Red River County was still a sparsely settled frontier reachable only by rough, weather-beaten roads. Through successive sanctuaries built in 1850, 1885, 1905, and 1959, the church grew into a pillar of Clarksville, launching Sunday schools, missionary societies, and even a daughter congregation. Its story traces the westward spread of frontier religious community across antebellum and modern Texas.
Clarksville Cemetery
Clarksville, TX
James Clark, founder of Clarksville, began this burial ground in the 1830s, and it holds his father Benjamin, a Revolutionary War veteran whose grave is the earliest here. Among the others laid to rest are Albert Hamilton Latimer, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, the pioneering newspaperman Col. Charles DeMorse, and the early preacher-educator Rev. John Anderson. Long known as the Baptist Cemetery, it gathers the founding generation of one of northeast Texas's oldest towns.
James Clark
Clarksville, TX
Born in Tennessee in 1789, James Clark settled in Northeast Texas and founded the town of Clarksville, which bears his name. He died there in 1838, in the early years of the Republic of Texas.