Author: Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Sarah and Cyrus: part 3

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 9 Comments

UPDATE May 31, 2021: timeline revised to include “1864” in the dates of enlistment for sons Albert Byron Clark, Charles E. Clark, and Albert Byron’s brother-in-law Francis Rasey.

“The other Clarks” from Mequon to “the other Madison”

Today’s post is the third in a series of several focused on early Mequon settlers Cyrus Clark his wife, Sarah A. Strickland. You know, these folks:

Photos from the collection of Steven Clark Van Slyke.
Courtesy Steven Clark Van Slyke and Lynette Thompson.

If you missed it, here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, and an earlier related Map Day post. You might want to take a minute to look at those posts first.

New families, new documents, new understandings

Because I’d spent less time researching Cyrus Clark’s and Sarah Strickland’s families than those of Jonathan Clark and Mary (Turck) Clark, I had a lot of catching up to do. Fortunately, I have been helped along the way by descendants Steven Clark Van Slyke and Lynette Thompson who have generously shared their notes and documents (and photographs!)

Inspired by their work, I have given Sarah and Cyrus the Clark House Historian “full treatment” (at least the pandemic-restricted, online-only version). So my Sarah Strickland and Cyrus Clark knowledge is definitely a work in progress, but it’s one that has yielded many new facts and sources that will help guide further research.

With that in mind, today’s post is less of an essay and more of a timeline, documenting what we know about this family, and what we don’t. We’ll focus on Sarah and Cyrus’s time in Mequon and the years afterward elsewhere in Wisconsin, before they “settled” in Madison, South Dakota.

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Meet the Neighbors: Cyrus Clark and Sarah A. Strickland

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 11 Comments

This is the second in what was originally planned to be a three-part1 series on early Mequon settlers Cyrus Clark and Sarah A. Strickland Clark. If you missed it, click here for part one. Also, I suggest you read this post to view maps that will prove useful in following today’s discussion.

The Jonathan Clark House Museum, and my work as Clark House Historian, is not just about Jonathan M. Clark, Mary Turck Clark and their family. The mission of the museum—and this blog—is to:

Collect, preserve and share the history of the Jonathan Clark House and the early settlers of Mequon and Thiensville.

Jonathan Clark House Museum mission statement

So with that in mind, I like to explore the stories of the Clark’s friends and neighbors in order to develop a more comprehensive picture of early Washington/Ozaukee county and it’s settlers. This week—thanks to an unexpected contact from blog reader Lynette Thompson—we will be focusing on not one, but two of Mequon and old Washington/Ozaukee county’s earliest settlers, Sarah Allise Strickland and her husband, Cyrus Clark. Why them? Just look at what I got in my inbox:

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Monday: Map Day! – Another Clark Family

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 5 Comments

This week we take a break from our usual focus on the extended Jonathan M. and Mary (Turck) Clark family and begin a week of posts about two remarkable, original Mequon settlers and Clark House neighbors: Sarah Allise Strickland (1823-1891) and her husband, Cyrus Clark (1815-1905).

Sarah A. Strickland was born and raised in Nova Scotia, the eldest child of Daniel and Matilda Strickland. Her family was one of the original white settler families in the area; they were enumerated in Milwaukee County on Wisconsin’s first territorial census in 1836.1

Cyrus Clark was born in western Massachusetts and was in Mequon by about 1839. He married Sarah Strickland in Grafton, Washington (later Ozaukee) County, on March 1, 1841. They lived almost forty years in Wisconsin. First in Mequon and Cedarburg, Washington/Ozaukee) County, and then divided their time between their farm in Moscow, Iowa County, and homes of one or more adult children in Oshkosh, Winnebago County. So how—and why—did they end up in South Dakota at the end of their days?

It’s an interesting story, and one that illustrates a characteristic type of pioneer experience: the continued drive to push westward, on to new frontiers and new challenges. It may seem cliché to us, but it was a real, lived experience for many of Cyrus and Sarah’s generation. This week’s posts will look at a number of key moments in their long lives, especially the decades they spent in Wisconsin. And we have some unique and new sources to share, too.

Beginning at the end…

Click to open larger image in new window.

Gravestones of Cyrus Clark and Sarah A. (Strickland) Clark, Graceland Cemetery, Madison, South Dakota.
Photo by Steve Van Slyke, used by permission.

We begin the story of Cyrus and Sarah Clark at the end, in Lake County, South Dakota, their final resting place. And not one, but two maps today, all of which take us far from Mequon and the Jonathan M. Clark house.

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Busy researching…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

I’m in the middle researching and writing several multi-part Clark House Historian posts, so no essay today. How about a sunny photo of the Clark House parlour, instead?

Photo by Reed Perkins, 2015. Click to open larger image in new window.

The cherry gate-leg drop leaf table dates from about 1850, and is used at Jonathan Clark House Museum board meetings. The bow backed Windsor chairs are based on 1840s originals. These reproductions date from around the 1940s or so.

The cherry corner cupboard is from about 1840. The finish and most of the glass are original. The tea leaf pattern china and twig pattern tea set in the parlour cupboards were donated by local antiques collectors. And the period reproduction light fixture was made in a small shop in Vermont.

Hope you have a fine day and a lovely weekend.

Back soon with surprises!

Clarks and Turcks: 1864-1865

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

No Milwaukee city directory in 1864

As we discussed previously, it appears that there was no Milwaukee directory published in 1864. Did the publisher go out of business? Did the war years cause manpower shortages that made canvassing for information impossible? Do any of our readers know more about this missing 1864 directory? If so, please reply. I’d like to know more.

Clark Mary Mrs. r. 474 Jefferson

As you can see in the new and improved Edwards’ Annual Director […] in the City of Milwaukee for 1865, Mary still resided at 474 Jefferson street in Milwaukee’s seventh ward.

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Monday: Map Day! – A Look at Wisconsin, 1851

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

Recent Monday: Map Day! (here, here) posts have focused on Mary Clark’s family—and her father Peter Turck and brother James B. Turck— as Mary and her children made the transition from rural life in Mequon to a home in the city of Milwaukee in the early 1860s. Today we backtrack a bit and look at some developments in the state of Wisconsin in the early 1850s.

The 1850s was a crucial time for many early Washington/Ozaukee county settler families. A few of the younger settlers were drawn West by the 1849 Gold Rush. A handful stayed in California, most returned home. Some—such as Mary Clark and her brother James B. Turck—decided that the city would be a better place to live and to raise and educate their children. Others, including more than a few of the early “Yankees” that had arrived from New England and New York state in the late 1830s and early 1840s, got the itch to sell out, take a profit and move on. Many of these went “West.”

Going West

In the 1850s, “Going West” meant different things to different people. For some, it meant the opportunity to buy large parcels of fine prairie farmland in nearby counties such as Fond du Lac, Waukesha and Walworth. For others, going west meant adventures in the lead mines and Mississippi River ports of southwest Wisconsin. And some would not stop at the Mississippi, eventually moving on to newly opened lands in Minnesota, the Dakotas and beyond, With that in mind, take a look at today’s map:

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1864/65: A Directory Divertimento

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

Today’s post started out as a simple continuation of earlier posts (here, here, here) looking at Mary Clark, her children, her father Peter Turck and her brother James B. Turck, living and working in Milwaukee in the early 1860s. We discussed the years 1861-1863, using as an important source the Milwaukee city directories compiled in those years by A. Bailey and published by Starr & Son. Today we take a detour from our search for Clarks and Turcks in 1860s Milwaukee, to learn a few things about how city directories were made, and about the revised Milwaukee street numbering system of 1865.

1864: Missing directory

It appears that there was no Milwaukee directory published in 1864. Did the previous publisher go out of business? Did the war years cause manpower shortages that made canvassing for information impossible? Do any of our readers know more about this missing 1864 directory? If so, please reply. I’d like to know more.

1865: New publisher, and more…

The 1865 edition of the city directory introduced big changes, both for the book and for Milwaukee’s street addresses. The new publisher was Richard Edwards, who was also responsible for similar volumes in other major cities such as St. Louis, Louisville and New Orleans. He announced his new Milwaukee venture—after a dozen pages of advertisements—with this handsome title page:

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Clarks and Turcks, 1863

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 5 Comments

Still together, in Milwaukee

In our earlier posts 1861/1862: Moving Time and Monday: Map Day! we followed Mary Clark and her children as they left the Clark house and farm in Mequon and moved to Milwaukee, sharing a home with Mary’s twice-widowed father, Peter Turck.

The next edition of the Milwaukee City Directory was for the year 1863. By the time Mary’s only son, Henry Clark, celebrated his 20th birthday on February 21, 1863, the nation had been immersed in the violence of the Civil War for almost two years, with no end in sight. That summer, Henry—a resident of Milwaukee’s seventh ward—would register for the Union’s first nationwide military draft.

Page 47 of the Milwaukee City Directory for 1863 gives Mary’s address as:

Clark Mrs. Mary, 474 Jefferson.

This is the same address as found in the 1862 directory. (In 1863, there is no other “Clark, Mary” listed in the directory as there was in 1862.) It is almost certain that all the unmarried Clark children are at 474 Jefferson with their mother. Besides Henry, there are six girls still at home. Libbie, the oldest, is 18. Jennie, the youngest, is only 5 years old.

Peter Turck

On page 246 of the directory we find Peter Turck—misspelled, not for the first time, as Turk—still living with Mary and the family at 474 Jefferson.

Click to open larger image in new window.
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Monday: Map Day! – Milwaukee Street Map, 1859

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 6 Comments

In our most recent Clark House Historian posts, 1861/1862: Moving Time and Fred Beckmann, Sr., we began to look investigate how in 1861/62, Mary Clark and her children left the Clark farm in Mequon and moved in with her widowed father Peter Turck in Milwaukee. Before getting down to the nitty gritty of the various homes occupied by the Clarks and by Peter Turck during the decade of the 1860s, I thought I should make a quick answer to the question: who lived and farmed the Clark farm from about 1861 to 1868?

Well, it turns out that the answers to that question are more complicated, and the evidence more sparse and in need of interpretation than I anticipated. So we are going to pause our investigation of the “who was Mary Clark’s tenant farmer?” issue for a moment, as I sort through maps and census schedules and consult with Clark House museum director Nina Look and others.

On the street where you live…

Meanwhile, I thought today’s Monday: Map Day! item should be a street map of Milwaukee from about the same time that Mary Clark and the children moved to the city in 1861/62. You may remember our post featuring the 1854 Panoramic Map of Milwaukee. I find that map really interesting and informative in a general way, but it has one shortcoming: none of the streets are labeled. That’s not very useful if we are trying to follow the Clark family’s progress from place to place in the 1860s and beyond. So how about this map?—

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Fred Beckmann, Sr.

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

UPDATED February 9 & 11, 2025, to correct the year and date of Fred. Beckmann’s death and investigate the apparent errors on his gravestone (see updated images, text, and especially Note 4, below).

Farming the Clark place, 1868-1873

In our previous post we saw that sometime around 1861/62, Mary Clark and her children decided to move to Milwaukee. By the time the Milwaukee City Directory for 1862 was published, Mary—and, we presume, her children—were living together with Mary’s father Peter Turck, at 474 Jefferson in the city.

We also know that Mary and her daughters did not sell the Mequon farm—to Catherine Doyle—until April, 1872. So, for over a decade, someone besides the Clark family was living and working on the Clark property. Most likely, Mary made some kind of tenant-farmer arrangement where someone grew crops on the Clark land and paid rent to Mary from the proceeds. This could have been a very useful source of income for Widow Clark and her seven children during the 1860s. Unfortunately, we don’t have much documentation of who the tenants may have been and what sort of arrangement Mary may have made with them.

The Doyle Family

In the same post, I also erred in assuming that the John and Catherine Doyle family probably farmed the Clark land throughout the 1860s. Clark House museum director Nina Look recently called my attention to information about the Doyles and their neighbors in various maps and census schedules created around 1870 that shows that the Doyles were living and farming elsewhere in Mequon through most of the 1860-1870 decade. In future posts I will look at those maps and census schedules and try and make more sense of where the Doyles lived and what land they may have farmed prior to purchasing the Clark farm in April, 1872.

Nina also reminded me that I forgot one important person that we know did farm the Clark farm: Fred Beckmann

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