Latta, Samuel A

a minister of the M.E. Church South, born April 8, 1804, in Muskingum County, Ohio, early evinced an aptitude for the Christian ministry, and, having practiced medicine from 1824 to 1829, entered the ministry by joining the Ohio Conference, and was appointed to the difficult mission at St. Clair, Michigan. In 1830 he was stationed at Cincinnati, and in 1831 was traveling agent for the American Colonization Society. In 1832 and 1833 he occupied the Union Circuit; in 1834, Lebanon station; in 1835 and 1836, Hamilton and Rossville stations. In 1837 he was agent for Augusta College, Ohio, in behalf of which institution he was very successful. In 1838 and 1839 he preached at Dayton, Ohio. From 1840 till his death, June 28, 1852, he maintained a superannuated relation. Dr. Latta was both an excellent preacher and a good physician, but he earned his highest distinction as a writer. For some years he was editor of the Methodist Recorder. He had a mind of uncommon strength, quite versatile, and he had improved it by extensive research and study. "He would sometimes reason with great power, and his descriptions of men and things were often exceedingly striking and beautiful." The work which gained him his greatest fame was The Chain of Sacred Wonders, published in 1851 and 1852, 2 volumes, 8vo. — Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 7:755.