Jonathan Clark House Museum

1857: Disaster

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 11 Comments

As the year 1857 began, things seemed to be going well for the Clark family. Jonathan M. and Mary Turck Clark had been married for seventeen years. On May 25, 1857, they welcomed the birth of their eighth child, daughter Jennie Marietta Clark. She joined six older sisters—Caroline, Elizabeth, Persie, Theresa, Laura and Josie—and one brother, Henry.

The family had been living in their handsome, two-story home of stone and wood—now the Jonathan Clark House Museum—for nine years. They owned 160 acres of fine farmland, and appeared to be one of the more successful and comfortable farm families in the area.

But not all was well in the neighborhood. In November, 1856, typhus struck Rev. James W. Woodworth’s father, Peter. By late December, Rev. Woodworth’s daughters Rosetta and Julietta were both ill with the disease. In early February, Rev. Woodworth’s wife, Cerena Loomer Woodworth was taken ill with typhus, followed by daughter Sophia a few days later.

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Summer in the Kitchen

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

I’m working on a number of longer posts, none of which are ready yet. So how about a Jonathan Clark House Museum photo instead?

Part of the kitchen at the Jonathan Clark House museum, Mequon, Wisconsin, July, 2016. Photo by Anna Perkins, used by permission. Click to open larger image in new window.

Mary Turck Clark—and the Clark children—probably spent part of each spring, summer and early fall day tending a sizable herb and vegetable garden. Herbs added flavor to food and were also valued for their medicinal properties. But herbs often grow faster than you can use them. What to do? Hang them up to dry, and enjoy their scents, flavors and healing qualities throughout the coming year.

In early July, if the weather had been good—lots of sun and perhaps an inch or two of rain each week—the Clark family might have enjoyed the first fresh green beans of the summer. That would have been a real treat after months and months of dried produce and the last, tired, potatoes, turnips, onions, carrots and such from the root-cellar1.

By the time autumn arrived, the last beans on the bush would have been big and kind of stringy. Not as tasty as the mid-summer beans, they would be hung up to dry so that the beans could be saved, ready for planting the next spring.

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Monday Miscellany!

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

Clark House News and an Update

I hope you enjoyed your Independence Day weekend. Our “Monday: Map Day!” feature is taking the week off. In its place, here is a round-up of some recent Jonathan Clark House news and a blog update/correction or two.

Three Cheers for Liz!

I was glad to assist Clark House museum director Nina Look in putting together this “tip of the hat” to Clark family descendant and stalwart Jonathan Clark House Museum friend and supporter Liz Hickman. This went out to Clark House board members and volunteers in mid-June, and I’m happy to share it with you here:

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Clark House News

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Staying Safe — and Up to Date…

Due to the current Covid-19 situation, Jonathan Clark House museum activities are currently suspended. We hope they will resume soon. Meanwhile, JCH director Nina Look is sending regular updates and announcements, and I’d like to pass them along to you, here.

As you’ll see from the flyer (below), we’re sorry to announce that the annual Pie on the Patio fundraiser auction has been cancelled.

Click on the page to open larger image in a new window.

I know I’ll miss seeing my Clark House friends, enjoying tasty local pie, and supporting the Clark House. But all is not lost…

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Think Like a Historian…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

To all my blog readers, I hope this finds you well and staying safe at home.

I just received a message from Jonathan Clark House director Nina Look and I thought I’d share it with you:

Dear Friends-

As you might imagine, the Clark House is closed at this time, but we continue to think about the history of our early settlers and how important it is to share that history with our children. I prepared the attached guide with the help of JCH Education Coordinator Margaret Bussone and JCH Curator Fred Derr.

Feel free to pass it on to a young person who may want to “Think like a historian.”

Nina Look, Director

CLARK HOUSE Think Like a Historian image

Click this link to open the CLARK HOUSE Guide for Young Visitors

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Batter Up! – For the Clark House

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

It’s almost March and that means Spring is coming, and so is America’s classic game—baseball. So leave winter behind and join the Friends of the Jonathan Clark House on Wednesday, March 4, from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at the Concordia University Wisconsin Pharmacy Building, room 008, for a lively talk by Dr. Patrick W. Steele on the “History of Baseball in Wisconsin.”

Refreshments will be served and door prizes given. The event is free and open to the public, with a suggested $10 donation to the Friends of the Jonathan Clark House. An RSVP to jchmuseum@gmail.com will help us plan the event. Need more information? Contact Clark House director Nina Look at jchmuseum@gmail.com

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Happy (Blog) New Year!

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Clark House Museum sign, night, Version 2-cropped

Jonathan Clark House sign, Mequon. Photo by Reed Perkins.

Even if the New Year is already 1/12th done – and we’re still two months away from the blog’s fourth (!) anniversary – Greetings and Best Wishes for a fine 2020 to all of you.

As always, I continue to be busy researching a large number of Clark House related subjects, and I look forward to sharing my findings with you in the coming year and beyond.

The new year is also a fine time for making changes, and I decided it was time to make a big one here at the Clark House Historian blog — no more ads! I don’t know about you, but I was getting pretty tired of reading posts and looking at historic documents while surrounded by images of nasty foot conditions and ambulance-chasing lawyers. So I finally took the plunge and shifted from a free but ad-filled blog to a paid plan with, finally, no ads! I hope you enjoy the more reader-friendly experience.

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February History Fun!

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

While the blog has been quiet for a while, behind the scenes I’ve been pursuing some hot leads as we try and solve the mysteries of Jonathan M. Clark’s parents, siblings and birthplace. More on that in the near future. Meanwhile, here are a few upcoming events that may be of interest:

On Saturday, February 1, 2020, from 10:00-4:00, Jonathan Clark House museum volunteers will have an indoor exhibit with family-friendly activities at the Mequon Nature Reserve Winter Frolic. For more information and parking directions, see their Facebook page.

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O!…Canada? History Mystery! No. 3

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 14 Comments

Jonathan M. Clark was born…where?

Perhaps this should really be the Number One Clark House History Mystery! — was Jonathan M. Clark born in the United States or not? All of our previous evidence indicates that Jonathan M. Clark was born in Vermont in 1811 or 1812, namely: 

• Jonathan’s army enlistment papers from September 19, 1833, state that he was “…born in Derby, in the State of Vermont.”

• His 1850 Federal Census population schedule declares he was born in “Vir,” which we are quite certain indicates the State of Vermont.

• In later years, JMC’s children would almost always declare on subsequent Federal Censuses that their father was born in Vermont. (There were a few exceptions; “Ohio” was given by one daughter almost a half-century after her father’s death. We’ll have more on those census responses in later posts.) For example, the second sentence of daughter Caroline Clark Woodward’s biography in American Women: Fifteen Hundred Biographies With Over 1,400 Portraits… (New York: Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick, 1897, page 799) reads: Her father, Jonathan M. Clark, was a Vermonter of English descent, who, born in 1812 , of Revolutionary parentage, inherited an intense American patriotism.

So it seems clear that Jonathan M. Clark was born in Vermont. If that’s the case why, on March 19, 1848, did JMC travel to the District Court of the United States in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Territory and file this document?:

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