Author: Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Snow!

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

The Holidays are upon us, and I’m taking time to celebrate and enjoy some time with family, That means I won’t have much new for you for the next week or so. (Don’t worry, we will wrap up the Alfred T. Bonniwell story in the very near future. I promise!) But in case you need a little Clark House history for fireside reading this week, I’m going to re-post several seasonal CHH favorites from past years. And since much of the Midwest is currently under a blizzard warning, I thought we should begin with this essay, which originally appeared in early 2021, was revised last February, and has been updated with an additional Currier & Ives lithograph for today’s post.

Snow, and often lots of it, was a feature of Jonathan and Mary Clark’s life in Wisconsin. And if you wanted to go to town or church or visit your neighbors during the snowy Wisconsin winter—or just enjoy a pleasant winter ride in the country—you’d need a sleigh.

Currier, Nathaniel (1813-1888), The road, winter / O. Knirsch, lith., 1853. New York: Published by Currier & Ives. Yale University Art Museum, Whitney Collections of Sporting Art, given in memory of Harry Payne Whitney (B.A. 1894) and Payne Whitney (B.A. 1898) by Francis P. Garvan (B.A. 1897) June 2, 1932. Public domain. Click to open larger image in new window.1

We don’t know if the Clarks owned a sleigh while they lived in Mequon. I suspect they did, though their sleigh—and their clothing—may not have been quite as posh as those in this Currier & Ives lithograph from 1853.

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The Bonniwells & Co. and the 1850 census (part 1)

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

The seventh decennial federal population census was officially enumerated for all persons living in the United States on June 1, 1850. For the first time, all (free) persons were to be listed in the census schedules by their full names.1 But as we discussed previously2, while the actual enumeration of the 1850 census should have begun in every enumeration district on June 1, 1850, it didn’t always do so. And it often took weeks—or even months—to complete the enumeration of most districts. Yet according to Census Bureau rules, whenever the government enumerator did show up at your abode, the census forms were supposed to record the location and personal information for each free person in every household as of June 1, 1850.

So where were the members of the two Bonniwell Gold rush expeditions on June 1, 1850, and where were they enumerated? Or were they enumerated at all? Well, we know that on June 1, 1850, the second expedition, taking the overland route, was camped here:

Highsmith, Carol M, photographer. The iconic Chimney Rock, now a U.S. national monument, stands out in the distance in Morrill County, Nebraska. United States Nebraska Morrill County, 2022-01-02. Library of Congress (public domain).

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‘Tis the season…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

Time is flying; it’s already been a week since Thanksgiving. I hope you all had time to enjoy the day.

I’m in the middle of preparing several Clark House Historian posts and the writing is going slowly. But! December is here and I’m starting to feel the holiday spirit. So until I finish my current research and writing project (we’ve got to bring the Bonniwells back from the California gold rush!), how about a seasonal photo from my most recent visit to the Clark House?

Clark House front parlor with holiday candle, 2022. Photo credit: Reed Perkins.

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Home to Thanksgiving

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

It’s Thanksgiving today, and I’m taking the day off to spend time with family. But in the spirit of the holiday, I thought I’d reprint a lightly revised version of last year’s Thanksgiving post, to share with you a few vintage recipes and a nice Currier & Ives lithograph from the period.1

Thanksgiving, 1867

Durrie, George H. and John Schutler, Home to Thanksgiving, ca. 1867, New York, Currier & Ives. National Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. Public Domain. Click to to open larger image in a new window.

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Tasting history

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

Over the past week or so our unusually warm and sunny autumn has given way to freezing temperatures and the occasional dusting of snow. Winter is clearly on its way. And Thanksgiving is almost here, the great American holiday where tastes and aromas can connect us to the past.

Many Thanksgiving celebrations will be centered around a big family meal featuring favorite traditional dishes, many of which only seem to appear on the fourth Thursday in November (with, perhaps, an encore appearance in late December).1 These Thanksgiving foods do more than stuff us with tasty calories. These holiday dishes often connect us to our own family and community history, sometimes in ways that are more immediate, nostalgic, and powerful than almost any other. Just as Proust had his madeleine, Americans have…green bean casserole. And apples.

Esopus Spitzenburg (NY, 1790)
Ashmead’s Kernel (England, 1700s)
York Imperial (PA, 1830)
Calville Blanc d’Hiver (France, 1598)
Idared (Idaho from NY cultivars)

Historic apple varieties, Brightonwoods Orchard, Burlington, Wisconsin. Photo credit Reed Perkins, 2022.

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The Bonniwell Bible’s provenance or, Who Owned It & When?

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Provenance

Provenance is an important concept for historians, collectors and museums. It refers to the chain of ownership of any collectible item, including manuscripts, artworks, official documents or, in our case, a family Bible. Establishing the provenance of an item—such as the Bonniwell Bible—from its creation to the present day is important for several reasons:

  • By studying this Bible as an artifact, a book published on paper, we are establishing its history and authenticity as a Bible, published in London, England, by Christopher Barker, in the Geneva translation, including copious notes, helps and other additions, probably during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and, more specifically, circa 1580-1603.
  • By studying the inscriptions in this Bible, we can also try and establish who owned the book, and when they owned it. The more we know about this, the more confident we can be about the historical and genealogical information found in the Bible’s many inscriptions.

Who owned it first?

That’s still a bit of a mystery. On the one hand, we do have a solid—though perhaps not unbroken—history of Bonniwell family inscriptions in this Bible, beginning in 1697 and continuing through the early 1900s. First-person family recollections record the Bible’s direct descent from that time until the present day. And we know that this Bible was first in the possession of a related branch of the Bonniwell family and then owned by “our” Bonniwells no later than 1795:

Bonniwell Bible, detail, showing inscription by William Bonniwell, 1798, and ligature WBonniwell, 1795. photo credit: Kendalyne Gentile, 2022.

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Veterans Day, 2022

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

Veterans Day is today. For a perspective on the day—and our early Mequon veterans—here’s a post originally published at Clark House Historian on November 11, 2016, and revised, expanded and republished several times since.

Armistice Day

One hundred and three years ago, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour—Paris time—the Armistice of Compiègne took effect, officially ending the fighting on the Western Front and marking the end of World War I, the optimistically named “War to End All Wars.”

In the United States, the commemoration of the war dead and the Allied victory began in 1919 as Armistice Day, by proclamation of President Woodrow Wilson. Congress created Armistice Day as a legal holiday in 1938. Starting in 1945, a World War II veteran named Raymond Weeks proposed that the commemorations of November 11 be expanded to celebrate all veterans, living and dead. In 1954 Congress and President Eisenhower made that idea official, and this is what we commemorate today. There are many veterans with a connection to the Jonathan Clark house. We honor a few of them in this post.

Jonathan Clark, Henry Clark, and the U.S. Army

Jonathan M. Clark (1812-1857) enlisted as a Private in Company K, Fifth Regiment of the U. S. Army, and served at Ft. Howard, Michigan (later Wisconsin) Territory, from 1833 until mustering out, as Sargent Jonathan M. Clark, in 1836. In the 1830s, Fort Howard was on the nation’s northwestern frontier. Jonathan’s Co. K spent much of the summers of 1835 and 1836 cutting the military road across Wisconsin, from Ft. Howard toward Ft. Winnebago, near modern Portage, Wisconsin.

Fort Howard, Wisconsin Territory, circa 1855, from Marryat, Frederick, and State Historical Society Of Wisconsin. “An English officer’s description of Wisconsin in 1837.” Madison: Democrat Printing Company, State Printers, 1898. Library of Congress. Click to open larger image in new window.

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Meanwhile, in California…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

It’s been a while since we explored the documentary record of Mequon’s Alfred T. Bonniwell and his family and friends. Previously, we learned that the Bonniwells’ gold rush saga involved not one, but two, expeditions. The second trek westward was overland, chronicled in George Bonniwell’s gold rush diary. That trip, and the diary, began with the party’s departure from Milwaukee on April 12, 1850, continued through their arrival at the California diggings in mid-August, and closed—still searching for gold—with a final entry dated Tuesday, September 24, 1850. For more details, take another look at Gold! – The Bonniwells go west…but when? and who?

The first journey involved a smaller group, which included Alfred T. and Henry V. Bonniwell. As we discussed in A (new) Bonniwell Gold Rush timeline, that trek appears to have begun in April, 1849, with an overland wagon trip from Milwaukee to points unknown, with the party eventually arriving in New Orleans. On September 6, 1849, this first party continued West, mostly via ship: New Orleans to Chagres (Panama), by canoe and overland trail across the isthmus to Panama City, and then by steamship to San Francisco. They appear to have made it to California no later than November 4, 1849. They likely docked at San Francisco and then headed up to Sacramento, the main point of entry to the gold fields, which looked something like this:

Parsons, Charles and George Victor Cooper. Sacramento city, Ca. from the foot of J. Street, showing I., J., & K. Sts. with the Sierra Nevada in the distance / C. Parsons ; drawn Dec. 20th , 1849, by G.V. Cooper ; lith. of Wm. Endicott & Co., N. York, before March 2, 1850. Library of Congress. Click to open larger and very detailed, image in new window.

Forty-niners!

Alfred and Henry Bonniwell, together with Mequon-area neighbors P. M. Johnson, Thomas Day and Richard Taylor and perhaps one or two others, made it to the gold fields in 1849, as part of the first wave of fortune seekers. They are, therefore, bona fide “Forty-niners.” George, Charles and both William T. Bonniwells (senior and junior), and the rest of their overland party would not arrive until August, 1850. It would appear that Alfred and the rest of the Wisconsin 49ers had a lucky head start on the others. Or did they?

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I must have drifted off…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Inman, Henry. Rip Van Winkle Awakening from his Long Sleep, 1823. National Gallery of Art, gift of William and Abigail Gerdts. Public Domain.

A long “nap”

Unlike Rip van Winkle, I haven’t been asleep the whole time since our previous post. But we are well overdue for new blog material. I’ve got a big backlog of documents and images to share with you; all I need to do is get writing. But first…

Be sure to vote today!

It’s election day today, and your vote counts. If you haven’t already done so, get out of the house, over to your polling place, and vote. Voting is your right and responsibility as a citizen, and an indispensable element of our nation since the earliest days of the Republic.

Not surprisingly, voting and public service were an important part of life in the Clark House era. From 1840 onward, Jonathan M. Clark, Peter Turck, William T. Bonniwell and many other relatives and neighbors sought, and won, appointment or election to a wide variety of local, territorial and state offices. Voting—then limited to white males only—was a priority for Mequon’s early settlers, and they never failed to turn out in large numbers for each election. Their passion for civic engagement and electoral politics was, in turn, passed to the next generation.

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