Jonathan M Clark

Not our Jonathan: other “J. M. Clarks” in 1830s & ’40s Wisconsin (part 1)

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

“Estray. […] J. M. Clark” advertisement, Southport [later Kenosha] Telegraph, Dec. 26, 1843, page 4

Hey! How did Mequon’s Jonathan M. Clark end up with a stray red and white heifer on his farm in…Pleasant Prairie, the most southeasterly township in all of Wisconsin, some 56 miles south of the Jonathan Clark House? The short answer is: he didn’t. The man that placed this “stray cow” advertisement in the December 16, 1843, issue of the Southport (later Kenosha) Telegraph was is not “our” J. M. Clark.

So many J. M. Clarks

Throughout the nineteenth century, many men seem to have been referred to, at least in print, by the initial letters of their first and middle names. The builder of Mequon’s Jonathan Clark House was no exception. Many of the documents made during his lifetime refer to him as “J. M. Clark,” and he often signed his name that way as well.1

“J. M. Clark,” signature of Jonathan M. Clark, from his final U.S. naturalization papers, 1853.

Unless the researcher is careful, it’s easy to make assumptions and presume that the “J. M. Clark” that built our historic Mequon home in 1848 is identical with the other “J. M. Clark” men that appear in various Wisconsin Territory documents, land patents, newspapers, and histories. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. To be certain that the “J. M. Clark” referred to in a particular source is “our” Jonathan M. Clark, we need to understand the “who, what, where and when” of each document or event that may—or may not— have involved our Jonathan.

I’m sure my list of suspects is incomplete, but (surprise!) it has turned out to be much longer and more complicated than anticipated. With that in mind, I think I’m going to need several CHH posts to sort out some of the most easily mistaken “J. M. Clark” men that lived and worked in the central and southeastern parts of Wisconsin Territory, yet were definitely not our J. M. Clark, the man born in Lower Canada (or Vermont) in 1812 that went on to build the historic Jonathan Clark House in Mequon in the 1840s.2

Let’s start with earliest and most northerly of these settlers, the first of several Christian ministers surnamed Clark that had links to Wisconsin Territory army posts that were home to our Jonathan M. Clark and his comrades during their service with the U. S. Army’s 5th regiment of infantry, 1833-1836.

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JMC, Barney Clow and Milwaukee’s American House hotel

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

Updated, August 4, 2024, to add a few explanatory links, to clarify the years of arrival of B. Clow and D. Maxon, and to clarify which families stayed in Washington/Ozaukee county, and which sold out and moved on.

Home away from home

Until the late-1850s, there were no railroads connecting Mequon to Milwaukee. If you needed to go to the city—for shopping, shipping, social calls or legal business—you either had to ride a horse, a wagon, a carriage (a sleigh in the winter), or simply walk there and back. It was about a 19 mile journey, over roads of dubious quality and variable states of repair. Even in fine weather, a one way trip might take the better part of the day.

So it was not unusual for Mequon farmers, such as the Clarks and their neighbors, to need a place to stay overnight when they ventured to the city. And from early days, one of the top destinations for Milwaukee travelers was the American House hotel. In 1844, the American House looked like this…

Advertisement, “American House,” [Prairieville (later Waukesha), Wisconsin] American Freeman, 28 Sept 1844 p 4

Take a moment to click the image and open a larger version in a new window. Zoom in and admire the couples strolling on the balconies and the arriving, or departing, stagecoach at the front door. All in all this looks pretty deluxe, by 1840s’ standards. But the hotel business, then as now, was always changing. Less than six years later the American House would be expanded, refurnished, and under new management…

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JMC: The missing years, 1836-1839

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

I’m still on the search for Jonathan M. Clark’s parents and other kin somewhere in the early-19th-century wilderness of northern Vermont and southern Québec. I hope to publish more about that here in the near future.

As part of that project, I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past few months organizing and re-examining the many research materials that I’ve gathered about JMC and his world, and I’ve constructed a whole bunch of genealogies for early Vermont, New Hampshire, and Lower Canada families named Clark that turn out—alas!—not to be related to our Jonathan M. Clark.

More mysteries…

Along with the mystery of JMC’s still-unknown family and childhood, Clark House museum director Nina Look and I have been trying to chase down some rumors that suggest Jonathan Clark may have spent his three years between mustering out of the U.S. Army (in 1836), and purchasing land at the land office in Milwaukee (in late 1839), as a surveyor in or near the area around Fort Winnebago, Columbia County, Wisconsin Territory. At the moment, that story remains a mystery, too. I’ll let you know if we find out more.

Anyway, with all these facts, rumors and mysteries—and many, many others—rolling around in my head, I thought it might be useful to outline JMC’s life in a handy, chronological timeline. Here’s a draft of that timeline, including what we do—and don’t—know about Jonathan M. Clark’s whereabouts and activities during his lifetime, as of July 1, 2024. I’ve included links to some relevant Clark House Historian posts where possible; please click on them for more information.

Childhood & Youth

November 28, 1812, (possibly, 1811) born to unknown parents, in or near Derby, VT, or Stanstead, Lower Canada

• Late-1812 to early-1831: JMC’s childhood whereabouts and activities unknown for 18+ years, with one possible exception:

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Nope, not our Clark family – Ft. Winnebago edition

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 5 Comments

Here’s another addition to our list of various Clark-surnamed people that show up in our search for Jonathan M. Clark’s kin, but we now know (with reasonable certainty) were not JMC’s parents or other relatives.

Today’s “Clark” subjects are connected to the history of the U.S. Army’s Fort Winnebago, and the surrounding area of Columbia County, Wisconsin Territory, during the decade of the 1830s.

Fort Winnebago was one of several posts in the upper Midwest garrisoned by the army’s Fifth Regiment of Infantry during Jonathan M. Clark’s three-year term in the army at Fort Howard (1833-1836). From about 1835-1836, the soldiers of the 5th regiment were responsible for cutting Wisconsin’s original east-west Military Road from Ft. Howard at Green Bay, to Ft. Winnebago at the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, and thence to Ft. Crawford at Prairie du Chien. In the 1830s, in addition to recent recruit Jonathan M. Clark, at least two other men with the Clark surname held positions with the 5th regiment in Wisconsin. Neither of these notable Clark men—it turns out—is related to JMC.

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 being added to the “Nope, not our Clark family…” list. Leading today’s installment is one of the 5th regiment’s senior officers and members of his pioneering family:

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Lost in the underbrush…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Advertisement, “Choppers Wanted,” Milwaukee Sentinel, August 27, 1839, page 3.

After years of searching for original reports and drawings or photographs of early Wisconsin road construction, I find myself entangled among piles of information and images on just that topic. Now, the challenge is to organize the best of this material into a few CHH blog posts and wrap up—for now—our most recent excursion along Wisconsin’s earliest roads.1

Like contractor George E. Graves in Sauk Harbor [Port Washington] in 1834 (above), I could probably use the assistance of some (digital) “axe-men” to clear my way forward. Perhaps some hearty fellows such as these…

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The Green Bay-to-Chicago and other federal roads, c. 1840

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

Time for one more follow-up to our recent posts Monday: Map Day! – Wisconsin’s Federal Roads in 1840 and JMC, the Army, and the Military Road, 1835-1840. As I mentioned in that “Monday: Map Day!” post, I recently found some unique maps and related documents in the digitized collections of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), in particular a group of maps and drawings created in 1840 by members of the army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers under the supervision of Capt. T. J. Cram.

Before they get lost in my files, I thought I’d share the other documents from Capt. Cram’s 1840 survey that have survived and been digitized by NARA. I’ve already said quite a bit about these 1840 maps and drawings; now I’m most interested in gathering the remaining 1840 documents and their bibliographic citations here for reference. So not much commentary today, but lots of images. And—as always—I recommend clicking on each item to open a larger, higher-resolution image in a new window.

Bridges on the Green Bay Road

The first item is of particular interest for Clark House history fans, as it provides additional details about old Washington/Ozaukee county’s first federal road, the north-south route connecting Fort Dearborn, Chicago, to Fort Howard at Green Bay. The drawing is part of a larger document; this portion is titled “Road from Ft. Howard, by Milwaukee & Racine, to the Northern boundary of Illinois.”

NARA, full citation, below.

The drawing illustrates construction details of the simple wooden bridges that were part of the Green Bay Road, circa 1840. This road, and these bridges, comprised the main north-south transportation route for the U.S. Mail and for immigrants and settlers of the new counties of southeast Wisconsin Territory. The Clarks, Turcks, Bonniwells and other early Mequon pioneers would have crossed bridges like these on their trips to and from Milwaukee, Grafton, Port Washington and beyond on the Green Bay Road.

And that’s not all…

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JMC, the Army, and the Military Road, 1835-1840

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

Today’s post is a follow-up to our recent Monday: Map Day! – Wisconsin’s Federal Roads in 1840. It features another document created by the U.S. Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers and preserved in the collections of the National Archives and Records Administration. Today’s drawing interests us as it documents—in some detail—the kind of road building work that Pvt. (later Sgt.) Jonathan M. Clark performed as a member of Company K, 5th Regiment, U.S. Infantry.

Webster, Jos. D, et. al., “Military Road from Fort Crawford to Fort Winnebago to Fort Howard (Wisconsin),” NARA, Record Group 77: Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Series: Civil Works Map File, File Unit: United States, accessed here, April 14, 2024.

This document interests us because after JMC left the army he, with many of his early Mequon neighbors, spent a good part of the 1840s surveying, cutting, clearing, and grubbing out some of old Washington/Ozaukee county’s earliest roads. In the process, these pioneers had to bridge streams and rivers of various sizes and depths, and find ways to keep the unpaved roadway dry and firm. How did they do it with the limited supplies and tools at hand?

Today’s document shows how the U.S. Army solved some of those issues a bit farther north, on Wisconsin’s east-west Military Road. The techniques and approaches to road construction use there may have influenced how JMC and our early county road builders solved the problems of building roads in the forests, wetlands, and open prairies of 1840s Washington county.

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A. W. Clark’s 1907 genealogy: Nope, not our Clark family…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

For the record, here’s one more source to add to our list of “not Jonathan M. Clark’s kin” dead ends in the search for JMC’s roots in northern Vermont and Lower Canada, circa 1800-1840.

Clark, Almon W., 1541-1907. The Clark family genealogy in the United States, a genealogical record showing sources of the English ancestors. Stamford, N.Y., Press of the Mirror-recorder, 1907. Library of Congress

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I’m deep in documents…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

…as I prepare my March 9th Civil War presentation for the Cedarburg History Museum, try to sort out the full story of Mequon-Thiensville’s earliest settlers and landowners (including first postmaster John Weston), and look through a bushel of fresh sources in our ongoing search for Jonathan Clark’s kin who hail, we think, from somewhere up around where Derby, Vermont meets Stanstead, Québec.

The Clark House Historian and his crack research team, searching for answers in the written record…1

As you can see, I’ve got work to do in order to dig out from under—and make sense of—the big pile of historical documents that I’ve accumulated over the past several weeks.

So no new CHH post today, but I’ll be back soon with more Clark House history.

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Monday: Map Day! – One more (updated) look at Ouisconsin Territory, 1836

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

Today’s Monday: Map Day! revisits and makes a correction to an interesting map that we first discussed here on October 29, 2017, and then re-visited on July 11, 2020. And for unknown reasons, that original 2017 post—according to my monthly WordPress statistics report—was the most-viewed post on this site for the month of January, 2024, with 341 views (!).

Burr, David H. Map of the Northern Parts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and Michigan and that part of the Ouisconsin Territory lying East of the Mississippi River, 1836, detail of title & author. Library of Congress.

The 2020 re-post was originally conceived as a kind of addendum to our June-July, 2020, multi-part discussion of the earliest Wisconsin territorial, state, and federal censuses. It also served to locate Jonathan M. Clark in Wisconsin Territory during his U.S. Army service from September, 1833, to September 19, 1836.

Today’s post includes one particular correction that I’ve been meaning to make for a while. When I added my original annotations to a detail of this map (in red), in 2017, I made an error. I mislabeled Sgt. Jonathan M. Clark’s location at the time he mustered out of service, a temporary army camp along the under-construction military road from Fort Howard (Green Bay) to Fort Winnebag0 (Portage). JMC’s muster-out location was always referred to in the records of the Fifth Regiment of Infantry as “Camp Hamilton.” For some reason, when I made my annotated detail map, I incorrectly labeled this place “Ft. Hamilton.” A minor error, but worth correcting , especially now that this map is receiving fresh attention.1

It’s 1836. Where’s…Wisconsin?

In September, 1836, Sgt. Jonathan M. Clark was discharged from the U.S. Army at “Camp Hamilton,” Wisconsin Territory, after serving his three-year term of service with Co. K, Fifth Regiment of Infantry.2  One year later, in the autumn of 1837, Jonathan’s future wife Mary Turck would make the long trip from Palmyra, New York, to Milwaukee and finally Mequon, Washington County, Wisconsin, with her parents Peter and Rachael Turck and six younger siblings. By the end of 1840 Jonathan and Mary would be married and starting their family in Mequon.

That seems simple enough, until you take a moment to wonder how much Jonathan—or especially Mary and her family—knew about this new Wisconsin Territory.  Jonathan had been in the territory since October, 1833, mostly on post at Ft. Howard. In the last year or so of his service he was busy cutting trees and building bridges for the military road along the Fox River waterway from Ft. Howard (Green Bay) towards Ft. Winnebago (near modern Portage). As a road-building soldier, Jonathan might have done some surveying and seen—or helped draw—a variety of maps of the military road and its vicinity. But for a better overview of this new territory, Jonathan or Mary might have sought out a map such as this:

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