TUMLINSON, JAMES, JR. (1781-1839). James Tumlinson, Jr., one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, was born in July 1781 in Lincoln County, North Carolina. He married a woman named Elizabeth in North Carolina. They had eleven children. By 1818 the family was living in Jackson County, Illinois. They moved to Texas in 1821. Tumlinson received one sitio of land in Colorado County near what is now Columbus and 1½ sitios in Wharton County in 1824. After Elizabeth's death Tumlinson moved to DeWitt's colony, where he married Diana Mary (Wilkerson) White. They had one child before her death in November 1839 in Gonzales County. Tumlinson acquired a large amount of property in Gonzales and operated a freighting business. In 1831 he apparently helped transport the cannon sent from Mexican authorities in San Antonio to Green DeWitt in Gonzales. He also transported the baggage of the Red Rovers in 1835. Several of his sons fought in the Texas Revolution, one of whom, George W. Tumlinson, died in the battle of the Alamo. James Tumlinson died in Gonzales County on July 9, 1839, and was buried at Harwood, Texas.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lester G. Bugbee, "The Old Three Hundred: A List of Settlers in Austin's First Colony," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 1 (October 1897). Dan E. Kilgore, A Ranger Legacy: 150 Years of Service to Texas (Austin: Madrona, 1973). Samuel H. Tumlinson, Tumlinson, A Genealogy (Eagle Bay, British Columbia, 198?).
