UPDATED, Oct. 31, 2023. Rearranged a few paragraphs to highlight the information about a son and grandson of Isaac “Old Rifle” Clark, Satterlee Clark, senior and junior.

I’m not going into great detail for each subject, but I’ll try and give enough info to make clear whom we are talking about, and why they are on the “Nope, not our Clark family…” list. Here is today’s installment.

Sir Alured Clarke, (c. 1745-1832)

Lieutenant Governor of Lower Canada, he helped implement the Constitutional Act of 1791—and its provisions for making grants of the Crown’s “Waste Lands” in the province—and his name appears on many of the early Lower Canada land petitions, including those for Stanstead and Hatley. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography has a fine, lengthy entry (illustrated with an engraved portrait) which concludes that Clarke was “a professional soldier whose modest talents and courteous manner had enabled him to discharge the civil duties of a colonial administrator without either distinguishing or disgracing himself.”

Col. Isaac “Old Rifle” Clark (c. 1742-1822)
Maj. Isaac Clark, Jr. (1787-1842)

Issac Clark was an early settler in southern Vermont. He led units of the American army in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. The Special Collections department of University of Vermont Libraries has a “Colonel Isaac Clark Papers” collection (mss-936). Their online finding aid has this brief outline of “Old Rifle’s” life:

Isaac Clark (1742-1822) of Castleton, Vermont served in both the American Revolution and the war of 1812. Clark’s public and military career spanned more than 50 years, and involved him in many of the events of Vermont’s early history. A hero of the American Revolution, he participated in the Battle of Bennington on August 16, 1777, and the re-capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1778. Clark married Governor Thomas Chittenden’s daughter, Hannah, in 1779. He was involved in the Haldimand Negotiations briefly, and remained firmly allied with the Chittenden/Allen faction throughout the Republic of Vermont’s tenure. Clark represented the towns of Ira and Castleton in the General Assembly for a total of seven terms. He served as Rutland County judge from 1806 to 1811, and on the Council of Censors from 1806 to 1813.

Isaac Clark is best-known for his leadership of the Vermont troops during the War of 1812. His responsibilities as Colonel of the 11th Infantry, Champlain District, included patrolling the Quebec/Vermont border to prevent the lucrative smuggling trade throughout the conflict, and he led several forays into lower Quebec in 1813 and 1814. […] During the War of 1812, Clark served with distinction, but was twice removed from his command under mysterious circumstances. Later, the Secretary of War reinstated his sword of command, and the U.S. Congress honored him for his service to his country.

He had several children, including a son, Maj. Isaac Clark, Jr. (1787-1842), with whom he should not be confused. The UVM finding aid also notes:

[…]His son, Isaac Jr., joined the 11th Infantry, and served at Plattsburgh, New York and Sackets Harbor on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. Another son, Satterlee, at Annapolis, kept Clark apprised of the political situation in Washington, D.C. […]

The Colonel Isaac Clark Papers consist primarily of personal and military correspondence from 1812 to 1821. Clark’s letters relate to troop activity in the Champlain Valley, while Isaac Jr.’s provide some details of recruiting efforts and troop life in the northern outposts. The Papers also contain materials pertaining to political issues before and during the War of 1812. The Papers are arranged in chronological order.

Isaac Clark, Sr., married twice. His second wife was Amie (Fitch) Clark (1750-1826), daughter of Stanstead’s original co-leader, Col. Eleazer Fitch.

I have not run a full genealogy on the Isaac Clark family, but as far as I can tell, neither Isaac Clark—senior, or junior—was related to our Jonathan M. Clark (1812-1857).

Finally, there remains one other—perhaps trivial—question: is this Isaac Clark the same “Isaac Clark” whose signature is on the original Stanstead Associates petition of April 3rd, 1792? Seeing that Isaac Clark’s Castleton home was near the petition signing location in Rutland, and that he had recently married Col. Fitch’s daughter Amie, it seems likely, but I am not certain.

Maj. Satterlee Clark (1785-1848)
Satterlee Clark, Jr. (1816-1881)

The other son of Issac “Old Rifle” Clark mentioned above, Maj. Satterlee Clark (1785-1848) and especially his son, Satterlee Clark, Jr. (1816-1881) may have 1820s or 1830s connections to JMC. I’m still organizing the facts, but I know that from the late-1820s, Satterlee Clark, father and then son, were each employed as suttlers in the early days of Forts Howard and Winnebago in what would become the Wisconsin Territory. Prior to that, they spent much of the 1820s in Utica, New York (the same city where JMC enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1833).

Whether JMC knew either Satterlee Clark in Utica, is not known. JMC probably knew one or both of them during his years in the army at Ft. Howard (1833-1836). I need to do more research to see what, if any, connections there may have been between JMC and Satterlee Clark, senior or junior.

William Clark (d. 1791)
William Clark (1770-1838)

Speaking of military men named Clark that are not kin of our Jonathan M. Clark, we might as well mention two notable men that have connections to each other and to early Northwest Territory and Wisconsin history, but not to JMC. These are William Clark (d. 1791) and William Clark (1770-1838). An important collection of their papers forms part of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Lyman Copeland Draper Manuscripts, archived there as the “William Clark papers, 1780-1804,” Draper Mss M MAD 3M/38/E2.

Who were these William Clarks, elder and younger? To get you started, here are a few biographical excerpts from the William Clark paper finding aid at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s online catalog:

Papers of William Clark (died 1791), a cousin of George Rogers Clark, who served in the Illinois Regiment and as commissioner and surveyor of the Illinois grant; and of George Rogers Clark’s younger brother, also named William Clark (1770-1838), who was one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, governor of the Missouri Territory (1813-1821), and superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis (1822-1838).

Papers of the elder William Clark include correspondence (1777-1791), pertaining to his service in the Illinois Regiment, administration of the Illinois grant, and the development of Clarksville, Kentucky and Clarksville, Indiana (including maps). […]

Papers of the younger William Clark (1770-1838) [the “Clark” of Lewis & Clark Expedition fame] include material on midwestern Indian affairs, 1814-1822, primarily messages delivered in 1815 to representatives of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), Kickapoo, Menominee, Potawatomi, and Sauk and Fox (Meskwaki) tribes signed by Clark, Auguste Chouteau, and Illinois territorial governor Ninian Edwards. Also includes the journal, May 14-August 17, 1804, of Charles Floyd, a sergeant with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The bulk of the papers in this series are those of the elder William.

I have done some reading about these men—including their relative, the renowned Gen. George Rogers Clark (1752-1818)—and their large extended family. Coincidentally, among Willliam and George Clark’s many other siblings, their older brother was a man named…Gen. Jonathan Clark (1750-1811). We should note that the roots of the many branches of this Clark family tree are in western Virginia and then Kentucky, and not New England or Lower Canada. I am convinced that this Clark family is not related—or, at least, not closely related—to Mequon’s Jonathan M. Clark.

Confused? Click the links for more biographical and historical information about all these men.

I’ll be back next time with some New England and Lower Canada Clark names that may—or may not—be related to future Mequon pioneer Jonathan M. Clark (1812-1857). See you then.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

• “Wrong Way,” Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, accessed Oct. 29, 2023.

• Clark, Col. Isaac death notice, Woodstock [Vermont] Observer, Jan. 1, 1822, page 3, via GenealogyBank.com, accessed Oct. 29, 2023.