U. S. Army

Memorial Day, 2022

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Lest We Forget

Our annual Memorial Day post, first published in 2020. This revised edition, originaly published in 2022, was inadvertently updated for the further-revised 2023 edition, making a few minor edits and adding new information about Evander B. Bonniwell’s service. So the original 2022 post is “gone” and I’m going to leave this revised-revised version of that post here for reference, in case it is bookmarked elsewhere on the blog or in a readers’ notes.

Graves of Unknown Union Soldiers, Memphis National Cemetery, photo by Clayton B. Fraser, (Library of Congress), public domain. Memphis National Cemetery is the final resting place of Mequon’s Watson Peter Woodworth, and almost 14,000 of his Union Army comrades.

Today is the day our nation officially observes Memorial Day. For many Americans, Memorial Day represents “the first day of summer,” and is traditionally celebrated with trips to the lake, picnics, parades, and sales on cars, appliances, and other consumer goods.

But for many of us, Memorial Day remains rooted in its origins as Decoration Day. The first national observance was in 1868, when retired general John A. Logan, commander and chief of the Grand Army of the Republic—the Union veterans’ organization—issued his General Order Number 11, designating May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

On this Memorial Day, let’s take a moment to remember what this day truly represents.

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Veterans Day, 2021

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

Veterans Day is today. I’m preparing a new post on one of our Clark House veterans, Mary (Turck) Clark’s youngest sibling, Benjamin Turck (1839-1926), but it’s not quite ready yet. For a wider perspective on the day—and our early Mequon veterans—here’s a post originally published at Clark House Historian on November 11, 2016, and revised, expanded and republished on November 11, 2020. I’ve also incorporated a list of Mequon’s Civil War soldiers, originally published here on May 24, 2020.

Armistice Day

One hundred and three years ago, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, at the eleventh hour—Paris time—the Armistice of Compiègne took effect, officially ending the fighting on the Western Front and marking the end of World War I, the optimistically named “War to End All Wars.”

In the United States, the commemoration of the war dead and the Allied victory began in 1919 as Armistice Day, by proclamation of President Woodrow Wilson. Congress created Armistice Day as a legal holiday in 1938. Starting in 1945, a World War II veteran named Raymond Weeks proposed that the commemorations of November 11 be expanded to celebrate all veterans, living and dead. In 1954 Congress and President Eisenhower made that idea official, and this is what we commemorate today. There are many veterans with a connection to the Jonathan Clark house. We honor a few of them in this post.

Jonathan Clark, Henry Clark, and the U.S. Army

Jonathan M. Clark (1812-1857) enlisted as a Private in Company K, Fifth Regiment of the U. S. Army, and served at Ft. Howard, Michigan (later Wisconsin) Territory, from 1833 until mustering out, as Sargent Jonathan M. Clark, in 1836. In the 1830s, Fort Howard was on the nation’s northwestern frontier. JMC’s Co. K spent much of the summers of 1835 and 1836 cutting the military road across Wisconsin, from Ft. Howard toward Ft. Winnebago, near modern Portage, Wisconsin.

Fort Howard, Wisconsin Territory, circa 1855, from Marryat, Frederick, and State Historical Society Of Wisconsin. “An English officer’s description of Wisconsin in 1837.” Madison: Democrat Printing Company, State Printers, 1898. Library of Congress. Click to open larger image in new window.

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Still getting the lay of the land…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

I’m still sifting through a huge (mostly digital) pile of Caroline M. Clark and William W. Woodward sources and trying to organize them into a series of coherent and interesting posts for you. Sort of like assembling a bunch of hastily-drawn field surveys and turning them into accurate topographical maps or railroad construction plans:

Unknown photographer, W.W. Wright, Chf. Eng. & … Mil. RRds. United States, circa 1861 and 1866. Library of Congress. Click to open larger image in new window.

At least my desk is indoors.

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RBOH – “How’d they get here?” edition…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

Here’s another hodgepodge of Random Bits Of History. Today’s items were found during our research for other posts in our “How’d they get there?” series.

More on JMC’s path from New York to Fort Howard, 1833

In our post How’d they get here? – JMC to Ft.Howard, 1833., I surmised that new army recruit Jonathan M. Clark mustered in at Ft. Niagara, New York, and then went from there to join his regiment at Fort Howard, Green Bay, Michigan (later Wisconsin) Territory. I’ve since discovered two newspaper items that support that surmise. Here’s one from Spring, 1833, about five months before JMC signed his enlistment papers in Utica, New York:

[Recruits travel from Ft Niagara to Buffalo], dateline Buffalo, May 22, reprinted in [Philadelphia] Daily Chronicle, May 29, 1833, page 3. genealogybank.com. Click image to open image in new window.

On May 22, 1833, ninety fresh U.S. Army recruits marched from the army’s personnel depot at Ft. Niagara to “Tonawanta,” presumably the New York village of Tonawanda, located where Tonawanda Creek, the final stretch of the westbound Erie Canal, meets the Niagara River:

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Monday: Map Day! – Ft. Howard & Green Bay, 1827

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

Last time, we illustrated our look at Ft. Howard with this detail from the first widely-available map of Wisconsin—and the first map of the territory based on official surveys—published in 1837:

Detail, Topographical map of Wisconsin Territory / compiled from the Public Surveys on file in the Surveyor General’s office … by Samuel Morrison, Elisha Dwelle [and] Joshua Hathaway, 1837. American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Click the detail map to open a larger version in a new window. Click here for a link to the complete map at UW-M with full bibliographic information.

This detail—showing Fort Howard, Navarino and, at the top, the southern end of Green Bay—was the subject of a Monday: Map Day! post in December, 2020, and gives a good picture of the topography and settled areas along the final miles of the Fox River as it empties into Green Bay. But on closer look, the details of the fort and its layout are very vague, limited to one X-shaped symbol. For a better understanding of Fort Howard in its most active era, we need to look at the actual 1823/1827 federal survey upon which the 1837 map was based:

Private Claims at Green Bay, 1823/1827

Detail, [Title section] of map, Private Claims at Green Bay, surveyed in July, Aug.t & Sept.r 1823; see image of complete map for full citation. Click to open larger image in new window.

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How’d they get here? Detroit to Ft. Howard, 1834 (part 2)

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 6 Comments

More Great Lakes Tourism – Summer, 1834

Our series of “How’d they get here?” posts is written to illustrate the nuts and bolts of how our early Mequon pioneers travelled from their original homes or ports of arrival in North America to the newly opened federal lands in Wisconsin Territory, circa 1830-1850. Today’s post continues our previous post, a first-person description of 1830s frontier tourism that we called How’d they get here? Detroit to Ft. Howard, 1834 (part 1).

Picking up where we left off…

Wednesday, July 16, arrival at Green Bay

On Wednesday, as the Sun was slowly sinking to its repose in cloud of the most gorgeous and variegated colors, we arrived at the extremity of Green Bay, and about two miles up the Fox river, we landed at Navarino,2 receiving as we passed a salute from Fort Howard, on the opposite side of the river.

Detail, Topographical map of Wisconsin Territory / compiled from the Public Surveys on file in the Surveyor General’s office … by Samuel Morrison, Elisha Dwelle [and] Joshua Hathaway, 1837. American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Click the detail map to open a larger version in a new window. Click here for a link to the complete map at UW-M and its bibliographic information.

This map detail—showing Fort Howard, Navarino and, at the top, the southern end of Green Bay— is from the Topographical map of Wisconsin Territory, published in 1837 and the subject of a Monday: Map Day! post in December, 2020. As a reminder, this 1837 map shows all the lands officially surveyed by the federal government up to the time of publication. In 1837, the territory to the north and west of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers was still reserved for Wisconsin’s Native Americans, so the lands to the north and west of the Fox River are left (mostly) blank on this official map. But this land was not at all “empty.” The Indians, the forests, the wildlife, some of the old Métis and Anglo-American settlers—and the army—were all on the left bank of the Fox River in 1837, as they were in 1834, when the steamboat Michigan and its passengers arrived in Green Bay.

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How’d they get here? Detroit to Ft. Howard, 1834 (part 1)

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

Our series of “How’d they get here?” posts is written to illustrate the nuts and bolts of how our early Mequon pioneers travelled from their original homes or ports of arrival in North America to the newly opened federal lands in Wisconsin Territory, circa 1830-1850. Today’s post looks at another trip to Ft. Howard on the steamboat Michigan, this time in the summer of 1834.

In Monday’s How’d they get here? – JMC to Ft.Howard, 1833, we looked at the likely probability that from October 16 – 30, 1833, Pvt. Jonathan M. Clark left the U.S. Army’s recruiting depot at Ft. Niagara, New York, and traveled the Great Lakes from Buffalo, New York, to his new post at Fort Howard, Green Bay, Michigan (later Wisconsin) Territory. To make that late-season journey the army chartered the new and lavishly appointed steamboat Michigan.

Great Lakes Tourism – Summer, 1834

Less than a year after that October, 1833, voyage the owners of the Michigan announced two special excursions to the “Far West” for the summer of 1834. The first of these was scheduled to leave Buffalo on Thursday, July 10, headed to “the Sault St. Marie (foot of Lake Superior), Michigan and Green Bay, touching at the ports on Lake Erie and at Detroit,” and would “embrace a distance of nearly 2000 miles, during which, passengers will have an opportunity of viewing the splendid scenery of Lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron, Superior and Michigan, and the rivers, straits and bays connected with them.”

“Steamboat excursion to the Far West,” advertisement, Albany Argus, June 6, 1834, page 3, via genealogybank.com. Click to open larger image in new window.

The second trip would depart Buffalo on August 12th, and would take in all the sights of the July trip, and additional notable points along the south and east coasts of Lake Michigan, including Chicago, Michigan City, “St. Josephs,” and the mouth of Michigan’s Grand River. What could an 1834 tourist to the “Far West” expect on such an excursion? We have a first-hand report from the July trip, which includes an eventful stop at Jonathan M. Clark’s post at Ft. Howard.

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How’d they get here? – JMC to Ft.Howard, 1833.

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

Our series of “How’d they get here?” posts is written to illustrate the nuts and bolts of how our early Mequon pioneers travelled from their original homes or ports of arrival in North America to the newly opened federal lands in Wisconsin Territory, circa 1830-1850. Today’s post looks at how Jonathan M. Clark may have made the trip west to Wisconsin in October, 1833. And, in the process, we correct an important, but incorrect, date in the JMC timeline.

Jonathan M. Clark heads west…

Back in June, 2016, I outlined what we knew about Jonathan Clark’s 1833 enlistment in the army and subsequent journey to Green Bay:

After enlisting in the Army in Utica, New York, on September 19 and confirming his enlistment on September 28, 1833, Jonathan was sent to one of the Army’s “general depots.” I’ve not yet established which one he went to; the most likely places were the Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, or Kentucky’s  Newport Barracks, on the south side of the Ohio River, across from Cincinnati. It’s possible that Jonathan may have reported to another “depot,” perhaps Ft. Niagara, New York, which was the home base of JMC’s recruiter, Capt. Clitz.

In any case, less than a month later Jonathan arrived at Fort Howard, Michigan [later Wisconsin] Territory. Fort Howard was the headquarters of the army’s Fifth Regiment, with easy water access via Lake Michigan to Ft. Dearborn, Chicago and, via the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, to Forts Winnebago and Crawford.

Perkins, Reed, “Pvt. Clark, reporting for duty”, Clark House Historian, June 3, 2016, lightly revised and updated.

Now that we know more about early transportation routes from New York to Wisconsin it seems unlikely that JMC reported to either the Jefferson Barracks or the Newport Barracks before arriving at Fort Howard. Yes, it would have been relatively easy to travel from Utica, New York, to either the Jefferson or Newport barracks via the Erie Canal to Lake Erie, and then the Ohio canals and Ohio river. But Fort Howard was one of the army’s northernmost posts. If JMC had been shipped to one of the main personnel depots in Kentucky or Missouri, the northward trip from either place to Green Bay and Ft. Howard would have been needlessly long and difficult.

Fort Niagara

I now suspect that Jonathan Clark mustered in to service at Fort Niagara, New York.2

Map detail, showing western New York state, including Ft. Niagara, the Erie Canal, and Buffalo, from Poussin, Guillaume-Tell, Travaux d’ameliorations interieures projetes ou executes par le Gouvernement General des Etats-Unis d’Amerique, de 1824 a 1831 … Atlas. Paris, Anselin, Libraire, pour l’art militaire, les sciences et les arts, […],1834. Imprimerie de Lachevardiere, rue du Colombier, No. 30. Credit, David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries, non-commercial use permitted under Creative Commons license. Click image to open larger image in new window.1

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“An afflicted father” – Peter Turck’s 1862 letter to Gen. Butler

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

This week our attention has been turned to New Orleans, the adopted home of Peter Turck’s eldest son—and Mary (Turck) Clark’s younger brother—Joseph R. Turck. Our previous post, J. R. Turck – from Mequon to New Orleans, sketched a brief outline of Joseph’s life, including a half century lived in the Crescent City. That post also discussed Joseph’s very brief service in a Confederate “home guard” militia unit during the Civil War, and how he had lost touch with his Wisconsin family during and after the capture of New Orleans in 1862.

A rare Peter Turck manuscript

We have a number of examples of Peter Turck’s signature—and an occasional bit of text in his hand—from various land documents, marriage licenses, federal census pages, citizen petitions, and other documents from the 1840s to the 1860s. Today’s document is the only letter I have seen in Peter Turck’s own hand, and it gives us a rare insight into Peter Turck’s paternal feelings (as expressed in the typically florid and deferential language of the era) and some additional details about the life of his eldest son, Joseph.1 It’s an interesting letter, and I thought you might like to read it.

Turck’s letter is preserved as part of National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) publication M345, Papers Relating to Citizens, compiled 1861 – 1867. These are letters sent by U.S. civilians to the Provost Marshal’s office of the Union Army. The Provost Marshal was, essentially, the chief of the military police in an area occupied by Union troops.

This letter was published in NARA series M345, microfilm roll 0270, item Joseph R. Turck. It’s accessible online at Fold3.com (pay site). The transcription is mine, and preserves Peter Turck’s occasional curious spelling or punctuation errors. The original letter appears to cover two sides of a single sheet of paper. The original envelope was not microfilmed; it was probably discarded by the New Orlean’s provost marshal’s staff in 1862.

Milwaukee, July 25th 1862

Turck, Peter to Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, July 25, 1862, page 1 of 2. NARA publication M345 Papers Relating to Citizens, compiled 1861 – 1867. Roll 0270, Joseph R. Turck, Fold3.com, accessed 20 March 2014. Click to open larger image in new window.

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New Orleans

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

Once again, several states along and north of the Gulf of Mexico face the force of a major hurricane. As I type this, New Orleans, one of the most historic cities in the United States, is without power, and hundreds of thousands of citizens—and large parts of the the area’s industries and environment—remain threatened as Hurricane Ida makes its way inland. I’ll let other, more knowledgable sources report the news. For now, I encourage you to remember and support our compatriots as they endure and recover from this major natural disaster.

Bachmann, John, Birds’ eye view of New-Orleans / drawn from nature on stone by J. Bachman, [i.e., Bachmann], ca. 1851. New York: Published by the agents A. Guerber & Co., Printed by J. Bachman. Library of Congress. Click to open larger image in new window.

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