RBOH

“Point-and-shoot” camera – Civil War style

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Technology keeps evolving. Today, if you want to record an image of something interesting, all you have to do is reach in your pocket, whip out your phone, and click. In a instant, you can have a high-resolution, full-color photograph and share it with the world via the internet. Making photographs has never been faster or easier. This was not always the case.

In the earliest days of photography, from about 1839-1860, the predominant technology was the Daguerreotype. It was a brilliant development, but required a good supply of natural light as well as special techniques, cameras, chemicals, and long, motionless poses by the photographer’s subjects. With all those requirements, most photographers made their Daguerreotypes indoors, in improvised or designed-for-purpose studios.

But by the time of the American Civil War, 1861-1865, there were other photographic techniques, including albumen silver prints and tintype photographs that were less expensive and permitted the use of shorter exposure times and lighter and “more portable” equipment, such as this:

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Searching for JMC’s roots: Daily life in the Stanstead area, 1784-1817

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

A recent CHH comment from reader Meredith Johanson brought an interesting local history newspaper article to my attention. It’s from page 8 of the Sherbrooke [Québec] Daily Record of May 13, 1911, now available as a digital image at BAnQ.

The article was compiled by H. I Bullock, of Beebe Junction, Stanstead county, Québec. The compiler was a descendant of one of the earliest white settler families in the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada, the Ruiter family and, as of 1911, s/he possessed a number of historic Ruiter family documents.

The contents of several of these documents are presented in detail in the article, and include discussions of Ruiter family settlement in the Stanstead area, how farms and homes were created in the heavily-timbered forests of the “New Townships,” various local trades and supplies and their respective wages and costs, and early military affairs, with local militia rosters from 1809 and 1817.

The article is focused on Ruiter family documents, but many other early settlers are mentioned by name, including one William Clark, and several men with the surname Merrill. As far as we know—at the moment—none of these men are directly related to our Jonathan Morrell/Merrill Clark. But the information in this 1911 article does give a hint of what life was like for the first Stanstead-area settlers—such as Jonathan M. Clark’s still-unknown parents—in the early 1800s.

Bartlett, W. H, artist, A First Settlement, drawing, brown wash on wove paper, c. 1840, National Gallery of Canada, public domain.

I have made no cuts to the article, and since the original is long, I have not included extra commentary. I have added more white space between paragraphs for ease of reading, made a few clarifications and citations in the Notes that follow, and added an illustration not found in the original. Here’s the complete transcription. I hope you find it interesting:

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How do you…? A Clark-era handbook

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Recently, reader and Jonathan Clark House friend Ed Foster mentioned that he wanted to know more about how various JCH tools were used and necessary supplies were made, for example, how were lye soap or candles made? These are excellent questions, as they help us understand the day-to-day world of the Clarks and their neighbors in a more vivid and detailed way.

So, how did Jonathan and Mary Clark make candles or soap or perform many of the other home- and farm-related tasks that occupied so much of their time? Living in their pre-internet, pre-YouTube era, if they did not learn these skills from a parent or other mentor, how did they master such skills on their own? Fortunately for them, the 19th-century was a golden era of what we would call “How To” books.

The “Endless Variety” of books, circa 1837

Jonathan M. Clark mustered out of the U.S. Army at the end of his three-year’s service with Co. K, 5th Regiment Infantry, in September, 1836. While in service, he may have learned or refined a number of useful skills, especially those related to surveying and road construction. The army thought highly enough of his character and aptitude that he rose from private soldier in September, 1833, to Sergeant in 1836. He was, by several accounts, an intelligent and well-read man.

But even an intelligent, experienced man can’t know everything. For that, there were books and stores that sold them. If Jonathan, after he left the army, needed more information on the “practical arts,” he could stop by a shop such as White & Gallup’s “Variety Store” in Green Bay, and probably find the information he needed:

“Books,” advertisement from the [Green Bay] Wisconsin Democrat, 13 Jan 1838, page 1. First published 12 Dec 1837.

One of these advertised volumes caught my eye, just like it may have attracted the eye of Jonathan Clark and many other settlers in the wilds of the Wisconsin Territory in the 1830s…

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RBOH: Weston & Western, Loomis & Loomer, and how do you pronounce Isham?

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Time for a few Random Bits of History: Early Mequon Settlers’ Disambiguation Edition.

John Weston & John Western

Mequon’s first postmaster, John Weston, is mentioned many times in the essential local history book, the History of Washington and Ozaukee Counties, Wisconsin … Illustrated. Western Historical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1881. Using the “Find” function on my PDF copy of the book,1 I found results for “John Weston” on pages 475, 476, 523, 524 and 545.

There is also an entry for “T. Weston” among the names on the “First Poll-List of Washington County” on page 316. I am confident that this is a typographical error and that “T. Weston” is actually John Weston.

The same source also records, among the early area settlers, one “John Western,” on pages 316, 477 and 478. Is this the same man as John Weston? I have carefully compared a number of sources, including the early minutes of the county road supervisors and deeds in the Washington/Ozaukee county deed books, and I am convinced that during the early years of settlement in the Mequon-Milwaukee area, “John Weston” and “John Western” are the same person, namely John Weston, born in New York about 1800, and married to Deborah Milliner in Milwaukee County in April, 1838. I’ll have examples from the documents that explain my reasoning in a future post.

Fun fact: Mary (Turck) Clark’s father, (Baptist) “Elder” Peter Turck, was the officiant at the Weston-Milliner wedding in 1838. It was the fortieth marriage recorded in the first volume of marriage records for Milwaukee county (and its still-attached for judicial purposes neighbor counties, including old Washington/Ozaukee county).2

With the Weston & Western mystery solved—for the moment—let’s see what other bits of error and confusion we can clear up…

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CHH blog roundup, 2023

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

As the volunteer historian for the Jonathan Clark House Museum, it’s my privilege to investigate, document, and share with you the stories of the Clarks, their relatives, neighbors, friends, and try to bring to life the world in which they lived. Much of my work involves finding, studying and analyzing relevant documents and visual images, and much of that work happens “behind the scenes,” so to speak.

The Clark House Historian at work (note discarded drafts and as-yet unfinished projects).1

Each week (well, “each week” is the goal…) I share some of my findings with you on this blog. Now that the old year is gone, I thought it might be worthwhile to see what we accomplished at Clark House Historian in 2023. Let’s begin by taking a quick look at the numbers…

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Happy New Year, 1848

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

1848 was a big year for Jonathan and Mary (Turck) Clark. Their family now included four children: Caroline (b. 1840), Henry (b. 1843), Libbie (b. 1845) and infant daughter Persie (b. 1847). And 1848 was the date that Jonathan M. Clark inscribed—just below his own name—on the Clark House “cornerstone” that still decorates the lintel above the Clark House front (south) door.

Photo credit: Reed Perkins, 2015

1848 was a landmark year in many respects. Gold was discovered in California, the War with Mexico ended with the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo and, most importantly for our Mequon pioneers, the Wisconsin Territory adopted a state constitution and was admitted by act of Congress as the 30th state in the Union.

Of course, on January 1, 1848, those events—and many others—still lay in the future, in the New Year. We’ve blogged about some of those events here at Clark House Historian, and we’ll have more to say about other 1848 events in the future. But did you ever wonder how our Mequon settlers observed the change from one year to the next during the 1840s and 1850s?

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Holiday Fun in NYC, 1864

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

I’m still taking some time to relax and catch up on my reading. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the repost of this Revised! and Enhanced! holiday piece that first appeared in December, 2021.

It’s the week after Christmas. Perhaps you have family or friends visiting from out of town. If you have children, they’re home from school. How to keep them entertained? If you lived near New York City in 1864, you were in luck. Barnum’s American Museum was ready with spectacular and unique holiday exhibits for the whole family, all for the low, low, price of 25 cents for adults, 15 cents for children under age ten!

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Autumn chores: Husking

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

I’m behind in my writing. Sorry about that. My Clark House history research continues “behind the scenes,” but I’ve been busy with typical fall chores around the house and garden, and that’s kept me from writing, proofreading, and annotating fresh blog posts.

Anyway, Thanksgiving is almost here, so look for my annual holiday post (with historic recipes!) later this week. And in the meantime, let’s reflect on how thankful we should be that we don’t have to process a barn full of harvested corn by hand anymore…

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Finding JMC’s roots: Vintage first names puzzle

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

No new research today. I’m celebrating a big event with family, and taking a few days off from emails and major blog posts while I do.

“They just don’t name ’em like they used to…”

I’m loath to leave loyal blog readers without some Clark House History to while away the time until our next big CHH post, so I made another word search puzzle.

Your assignment today is to find the vintage Stanstead-area settler first names, all of which are documented from Clark-era sources in and around Stanstead, Lower Canada, circa 1790-1840, and many of which will feature in future posts as we search for JMC’s roots.

As in our previous post, just click the image to open and print your own copies of this version of the puzzle. Or, if you’d like to play online, just click this link: https://thewordsearch.com/puzzle/6173938/stanstead-first-names-c-1790-1840/

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Searching for JMC’s roots: getting organized

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

I’ve spent the last four or five days deep in the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) database of Land Petitions of Lower Canada, 1764-1841.

I’ve searched this database before—and found some interesting bits and pieces—but the enormous quantity of digitized page images (sometimes hundreds of images in a single file), the limited name-only search indexing, and the somewhat quirky image-browsing interface, made results very hit and miss. Which is too bad, because there are treasures of historical and genealogical information to be found in the files.

So—confronted by such a massive pile of documents and files–what’s a historian to do? Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, so…

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