As the volunteer historian for the Jonathan Clark House Museum, it’s my privilege to investigate, document, and share with you the stories of the Clarks, their relatives, neighbors, friends, and try to bring to life the world in which they lived. Much of my work involves finding, studying and analyzing relevant documents and visual images, and much of that work happens “behind the scenes,” so to speak.

The Clark House Historian at work (note discarded drafts and as-yet unfinished projects).¹

Each week (well, “each week” is the goal…) I share some of my findings with you on this blog. Now that the old year is gone, I thought it might be worthwhile to see what we accomplished at Clark House Historian in 2023. Let’s begin by taking a quick look at the numbers…

2023 CHH blog stats

Crawford, Will, artist. Watching the tape or watching the wheel – what is the difference morally? (detail), New York, 1912. Library of Congress.

The year’s final CHH numbers (Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023):

• Number of visitors, 2023: 3,592
• Number of views, 2023: 7,610
• Number of posts, 2023: 70
• Number of words, 2023: 92.3K

FYI, the number of words written in a year does not include words found in images of documents and newspaper articles and such, but does include any transcriptions of those document images, as well as my own explanations and observations, and the accompanying bibliographic citations and image captions.

For comparison, here are the CHH blog stats for 2022:
• Number of visitors, 2022: 2,424
• Number of views, 2022: 5,523
• Number of posts, 2022: 62
• Number of words, 2022: 68.2K

The blog’s all-time outreach on behalf of the Jonathan Clark House Museum (2016 through January 11, 2024), includes:
• Number of visitors, all time: 10,423
• Number of views, all time: 30,021
• Number of posts, all time (including occasional re-posts of earlier items): 395
• Number of words, all time: circa 423,100
• Subscribers: 49

Full disclosure: In addition to sharing Clark House history with you all, I use the blog as a searchable archive of the facts, analyses, and images of documents, maps and other illustrations that I find or create during my work as Clark House Historian. I often search for and refer to previous blog posts as I prepare new posts and other work. So take the “visitor” and “views” stats with a grain of salt, and assume that at least a certain percentage of visits to the various blog posts are mine.

And in case you were wondering, here are a few more statistics:

Top five most-read posts, 2023 (not including the Home or About pages):

1. How’d they get here? – Great Lakes ships, circa 1837 (379 views)
2. How’d they get here? – Steamboats! (365 views)
3. How’d they get here? – early Erie Canal images (222 views)
4. Henry Clark and the Civil War draft (116 views)
5. Monday: Map Day! – Ft. Howard & Green Bay, 1827 (109 views)
   

Note that all of these posts were written and published on the blog before 2023. Apparently interest in these posts continued throughout 2023.

Top five all-time most popular posts, 2016-2023 (not including the Home or About pages):

1. How’d they get here? – early Erie Canal images (1,658 views)
2. How’d they get here? – Great Lakes ships, circa 1837 (631 views)
3. How’d they get here? – Steamboats! (535 views)
4. Map of Ouisconsin Territory, 1836 (289 views)
5. Lesen Sie Kurrent? (287 views)

Coming up

Those are the blog stats for 2023. I’ll be back soon with new posts, beginning with a return to our search for JMC’s roots in southern Quebec and/or northern Vermont in the early 1800s. I have a lot of material to work with and it’s taking a good deal of time to organize.

Then I’d like to wrap up my series on Alfred Bonniwell and bring home Alfred and the other Mequon gold prospectors, last seen in California in the early 1850s. I’ll also have more to say about the Bonniwell Bible and its associated ephemera that I cataloged in late 2022, but have not yet shared with you.

I’m also planning to update you on the school years and adult lives of the Clark children. I’ve gone into considerable detail on the life of the Clark’s eldest, daughter Caroline Clark, and her brother Henry Clark, but I have accumulated a great deal of information, and a few History Mysteries, regarding the other six Clark offspring. And, I’m slowly accumulating and sorting through sources that document the later years—and mental health struggles—of Mary Turck Clark and her father, Peter Turck. That series probably won’t arrive until late in 2024, at the earliest.

Meanwhile, I’m currently preparing a free presentation for the Cedarburg History Museum as part of their big 2024 Civil War exhibit. It’s called “From the ‘Burg to the Battlefield…and Back. Cedarburg’s Beckmann Family and the Civil War.” I’ll be looking at the war by examining the military service of few of the relatives and neighbors of 1868-1873 Clark House resident Fred Beckmann² and some unique stories from their years in the 9th and 26th Wisconsin Infantry Regiments. I’ve found some very interesting, and unexpected, information about these men—some of Mequon and Cedarburg’s earliest German settlers—and their Civil War service in the Union army. Save the date: Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 6:00 pm, at the CHM, I hope to see you there!

1864 National Color, 26th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Wisconsin Veterans Museum, V1964.219.119)

___________________________

NOTE:

1. Okay, that’s not really a self-portrait. It’s actually a likeness of poet Henry Longfellow, engraved and published by Samuel Hollyer, entitled Henry W. Longfellow in his library at Craigie House, Cambridge / drawn & engd. by S. Hollyer, N.Y., 1882. Library of Congress.
   
   And by the way: is that a portable writing desk on Longfellow’s library table? Sure looks familiar…
   
   
2. I remember that I promised to publish on this blog—in one format or another—my 2023 Cedarburg History Museum talk on Fred Beckmann. I have not forgotten my promise, but have not had the time to follow through, yet. But it is still on the To Do list for 2024.