After a lovely day Tuesday of sun and blue skies, I’m back at work searching for Jonathan M. Clark’s possible roots in Lower Canada. No news to share yet, so how about a photo from Old World Wisconsin?
Continue readingMaps & Places
Monday: Map Day! – Second Monday in October
I am descended from European immigrants to the “New World.” From the mid-1600s through the 1800s, they came to North America from over a half-dozen European lands. Like Jonathan M. Clark, Mary Turck Clark, and their nineteenth-century Mequon neighbors, I’m here because my ancestors left Old World homes, families, and communities behind and made difficult voyages to America. There is much to admire in their individual stories of migration and settlement in a new nation. There are aspects of their lives that are less than exemplary, too. Discovering and sharing their stories is, for me, one of the most interesting aspects of studying history.
But stories of European immigration are only one part of the history of our continent and our nation. It’s essential we remember that when Europeans began to “discover” the Americas in the late-1400s, there were already large numbers other peoples already here. Their ancestors made the trip here much earlier; it is currently believed that Paleo-Indians migrated to the Americas at least 15,000, and possibly as many as 30,000 years ago. Today’s map is a tribute to—and a call to remember—the many peoples, cultures and communities that existed in the future United States prior to European colonization:
Continue readingMonday: Map Day! – Lower Canada, 1802
Getting our bearings at the turn of the 19th-century
If we’re going to find Jonathan M. Clark’s kin in the early-1800s, we need to know where to look. Lower Canada—one of JMC’s two “official” birth places—has a very long and complicated history. For a decent overview, start here.
One point to keep in mind is that “Canada” as a unified, completely self-governing nation is a fairly recent creation. At the beginning, Canada, like all of the Americas, was heavily populated by a large number of Indiginous Peoples, representing many cultures, language groups, and political alliances and rivalries. For the first several centuries of European contact, Canada consisted of a number of colonies and provinces governed at different times by various European nations and one very large area controlled by a for-profit fur trading company (still famous for retailing woolen goods).
That’s a lot of history to catch up on. But to get started, we only need to understand a few basic places and dates, all centered around the modern Canadian Province of Quebec, or as it was known from 1791 to 1841, Lower Canada:
Continue readingMonday: Map Day! – Vermont, 1796
That was fun!
I enjoyed our recent look at early Mequon pioneers and Jonathan M. Clark neighbors (but not kin) Cyrus Clark and Sarah Strickland. I hope you did, too. I was particularly struck by how mobile Cyrus and Sarah were throughout their lives, even in the earliest years of the Wisconsin Territory. You’d think that after making their arduous treks from the Atlantic seaboard to the wilderness of late-1830s Wisconsin, Sarah and Cyrus might settle down and stay in Mequon for a while. But no, it was back and forth across Wisconsin, from Mequon to Potosi to Grafton to Moscow and then on to Madison, Dakota Territory, and then back and forth between South Dakota and Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
I also had a lot of fun learning something about early photographic techniques and historic attire and applying that new knowledge to the Cyrus and Sarah (Strickland) Clark family cabinet cards and tintype photographs. In the future I hope to apply these new skills for a fresh look at the few photos we have of members of the Jonathan M. Clark family.
Back on the JMC trail…
Speaking of the Jonathan M. Clark family, we still have some key mysteries to solve in the JMC timeline, the most important of which is: who were JMC’s parents and where was he born and raised? This is something that I have been working on for a long time, in collaboration with JMC descendant, and friend of the Clark House, Liz Hickman, Clark House museum director Nina Look, and others. In particular, Liz and I have gone through piles of information on Clark families in northern Vermont, New Hampshire, and southern Quebec, and I’d really like to take the time to collate and evaluate the information we have, and try to find Jonathan Clark’s roots.
So, time to head north, eh?
As we’ve discussed before, we have multiple authoritative, official, federal government documents in which Jonathan M. Clark stated he was born in Derby, Vermont. Or in Stanstead, Lower Canada. (It depends on which authoritative, official, federal documents you look at, of course!) And that brings us to today’s map:
Continue readingMonday: Map Day! – Railroads!
If you look at the timeline and other recent posts about early Mequon settlers Cyrus Clark and Sarah A. Strickland, you realize that these two did a lot of moving about in mid-1800s Wisconsin.
How did they do all that traveling? Back and forth between Mequon and Cedarburg in Washington/Ozaukee county and Potosi in Grant county, Waldwick and Moscow in Iowa county, the city of Oshkosh—back east, so to speak, in Winnebago county—and then “moving to” Madison, Lake Co., South Dakota—and still traveling back to (and living part-time at?) Oshkosh. By foot? Canoe? Horse? Buggy? Stagecoach?
The answer is…
Continue readingMeet the Neighbors: Cyrus Clark and Sarah A. Strickland
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:
Continue readingMonday: Map Day! – Another Clark Family
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…
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.
Continue readingMonday: Map Day! – A Look at Wisconsin, 1851
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:
Continue readingClarks and Turcks, 1863
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.
Monday: Map Day! – Milwaukee Street Map, 1859
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?—
Continue reading
Clark House Historian 