INTRODUCTION

The author of this book, Pat B. Clark, a planter and former justice of the peace at Clarksville, is a sterling representative of the most historic family in Red River County. His grandfather was the founder of the town of Clarksville, named in his honor.

His great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Clark, was a Tennessean. The great-uncle of Benjamin Clark was the distinguished George Rogers Clark, leader of the Army of Virginians at the time of the Revolutionary war in the capture of the British posts in the country north of the Ohio River, as a result of whose campaign that immense territory known as the Northwest Territory was acquired for the United States.

James Clark, grandfather of Pat B. Clark, was one of the first white settlers of what is now Red River County, Texas. He moved to that region from Arkansas in 1819, and on arriving found Henry Stout, Gabriel Martin and two other white settlers. He had certificates of land under the Mexican Republic, but traded them to Henry Stout, and the land later was patented in Stout's name, though the starting of the town was due to the