U. S. Army

Veterans Day, 2020

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

This is a revised, updated, and expanded version of a post originally published at Clark House Historian on November 11, 2016.

One hundred and two 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 the optimistically named “War to End All Wars.”

In the United States, the commemoration of the war dead and the Allied victory began as Armistice Day in 1919, 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.

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Now, where were we? – the search for JMC’s roots

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 4 Comments

As I mentioned in our previous post, Monday: Map Day!, we still have some essential mysteries to solve in the JMC timeline, the most important of which are: who were JMC’s parents and where was he born and raised? As it’s been a while since we last looked at this, I thought it might be useful to repost our original O!…Canada? History Mystery! No. 3, in which I collected and organized images, transcriptions, and links to the various documents that indicate Jonathan M. Clark’s (two!) “official” birth locations: either Derby, Orleans Co., Vermont or Stanstead Co., Lower Canada [now Province of Quebec].

Smith, Jones… Clark

One of the nicer assignments a genealogist or historian can receive is to trace the history and family of someone with a unique or distinctive surname. It is so much easier to trace families with surnames like Turck, Strickland, Rix or Clow, even if there are common variant or erroneous spellings like Turk, Stickland, Ricks and Clough/Claw/Klauw. But our man Jonathan, he who built the fine stone home in Mequon in 1848, carries one of the most ubiquitous surnames in New England and English-speaking Canada: Clark.

Over the past seven years or so, researchers including Nina Look, Liz Hickman, I—and others—have been trying to find the Jonathan M. Clark “needle” in the massive New England and Lower Canada “haystack” of Clark families. I think it’s time to finally collate our results, organize and set aside the “wrong” Clark families from the search, and see if we can discover Jonathan M. Clark’s roots.

This “sorting of the Clarks” may take quite a few posts.1 We will look at many sources, many family trees, and assorted maps and books to try and find Jonathan’s family. Along the way we’ll have diversions to other topics from time to time, I’m sure. But now, let’s get things started by taking another look2 at what we currently know about Jonathan M. Clark’s birth and family:

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Monday: Map Day! – Another look at Ouisconsin Territory, 1836

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

UPDATED, February 11, 2024, to include a revised annotated map. But for the full update—with additional notes and corrections—please see the most recent version of this, posted on February 12, 2024.

As a kind of postscript to our look at the early Wisconsin territorial, state and federal censuses, today’s Monday: Map Day! revisits an interesting map that we first discussed on October 29, 2017. Today’s post includes a few updates and corrections based on new information. 

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.1  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 this2:

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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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Census Records for the In-Between Years: 1836

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 5 Comments

Where’s Jonathan Clark?

Wisconsin’s first territorial census was enumerated in the summer of 1836. Our previous Monday: Map Day! post discussed the extent of the Wisconsin Territory in 1836, and outlined the few—very large and lightly populated—counties that were enumerated on that first census. If you missed it, you might want to read that post first.

Today’s post was originally planned to be a quick few paragraphs outlining the 1836 territorial census procedures and explaining how Jonathan M. Clark was, alas, probably not enumerated on this census; and if he had been, then we’d never find him; why that might have been; how this was not unusual for its era; and so forth. But! It turns out that we can find the “family” that Jonathan was enumerated with, though it’s kind of complicated, so bear with me.

The Wisconsin Territorial Census of 1836

The 1836 Wisconsin territorial census was typical for its time and purpose. The sheriff of each county was charged with enumerating four categories of white persons in his area:

  • Number of males under 21 years
  • Number of females under 21 years
  • Number of males over 21 years
  • Number of females over 21 years

There were no pre-printed forms; each sheriff used blank paper, a pen and a ruler to record the data. If you look at the actual returns (available online as FHL film no.1,293,919 , aka DGS film 7,897,817), you’ll find that the enumerators often recorded additional information not required by the authorizing legislation. (The Crawford county sheriff was particularly enthusiastic, subdividing his information into 13 age-groups for white males, 13 age-groups for white females, 6 age-groups for enslaved males and 4 age-groups for enslaved females.) The Brown county sheriff, as you can see (below), remained closer to his legislated mandate, and chose to enumerate five categories of white settlers:

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Monday: Map Day! – Wisconsin Territory, ready for its 1st census, 1836

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

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The vast Wisconsin Territory originally included all the current states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, and that part of the Dakotas east of the Missouri River. The Wisconsin Territory officially existed from July 3, 1836 until the current—and smaller—State of Wisconsin was established on May 29, 1848. The history of the territory prior to statehood, and especially before mid-1836, is complicated. For more information you might begin with this overview. Here’s an outline map of the territory:

[Map of Wisconsin Territory, April 20, 1836] original from Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Historical Collections, 11, this image from Wisconsin Historical Collections, 13:248.

Section 4 of the April 20, 1836 act of Congress that created the Wisconsin Territory, required that

Previously to the first election, the governor of the Territory shall cause the census or enumeration of the inhabitants of the several counties in the territory to be taken or made by the sheriffs of said counties, respectively, and returns thereof made by the said sheriffs, to the governor.

Act of Congress, April 20, 1836, quoted in Wisconsin Historical Collections, 13:247.

With such a large expanse of land, and relatively small number of white inhabitants, the Wisconsin Territory of 1836 was divided into only a few counties. Two of these, Dubuque and Des Moines counties, lay to the west of the Mississippi river and comprised the Iowa District of the Wisconsin Territory. (Both were enumerated in the 1836 territorial census, but I’ll let Iowa history fans follow up on those counties.) Here a map of the 1836 Wisconsin Territory counties lying east of the Mississippi River:

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Memorial Day 2020

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Lest We Forget

Graves of Unknown Union Soldiers, Memphis National Cemetery, 
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/tn0320.photos.578083p/

In spite of the worst pandemic in a century, a quick glance at the news will show that many Americans are celebrating this Memorial Day in our now usual way, as “the first day of summer.” Beaches and parks are open, stores entice customers with deals and sales, and people are crowding shoulder to shoulder in swimming pools and along ocean boardwalks.

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.”

This Memorial Day, let’s remember those Clark House family, friends and Mequon neighbors who served in the Civil War, and what they fought—and died—for. The History of Washington and Ozaukee Counties of 1881 lists these 65 volunteers from Mequon:

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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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Fort Howard, November 1833

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Previous posts have discussed Jonathan M. Clark’s enlistment in the U.S. Army’s Fifth Regiment of Infantry, Company K (part 1, part 2, part 3) and his arrival at Fort Howard (Green Bay), in the Michigan (later Wisconsin) Territory (part 1, part 2, part 3) on October 20, 1833. Let’s rejoin the regiment and see what kept Co. K busy during Pvt. Clark’s first full month on duty, November, 1833. Continue reading →

Map of Ouisconsin Territory, 1836

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

UPDATED, February 11, 2024, to include a revised annotated map. But for the full update—with additional notes and corrections—please see the most recent version of this, posted on February 12, 2024.

In September, 1836, Sgt. Jonathan M. Clark was discharged from the U.S. Army at “Ft. Hamilton,” Wisconsin Territory, after serving his three-year term of service with Co. K, Fifth Regiment of Infantry.  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, building portions of 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 probably had seen—or helped draw—a variety of maps of the military road and its vicinity. But for a better overview of the larger territory, Jonathan or Mary might have sought out a map such as this:

Continue reading →