Santa Claus visits Milwaukee, 1867

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Tonight is Christmas Eve, and I thought you might enjoy an expanded reprise of our 1867 Santa Claus story, originally posted December 25 and 30, 2017. In 2021 I combined the two original posts and incorporated some new illustrations and a few revisions of the text. Here it is again, for your holiday enjoyment. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Christmas in early America

For many years now, Christmas has been celebrated by Americans as an important religious and (increasingly secular) community holiday. Christians gather to worship and commemorate the birth of Jesus, and they and other Americans enjoy a break from work to gather with family and friends to feast and exchange gifts. But it was not always this way.

In many of the American colonies, Christmas was not observed as a religious or secular holiday. The seventeenth-century Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony considered Christmas to be non-biblical and pagan influenced. In Boston and other parts of New England any observance of Christmas was prohibited and, for a few years, actually illegal:

Penalty for Keeping Christmas, 1659

Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. Printed by order of the Legislature, edited by Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M.D., Vol. IV, Part I, 1650-1660, online at mass.gov (accessed 21 Dec. 2021). Click to open larger image in new window.

Transcription:
For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countries, to the great dishonor of God and offence of others, it is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon such accounts as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the country.

Christmas was not generally accepted as a holiday in many parts of the United States until after the federal government made December 25 a national holiday in 1870.

On the other hand…

The Massachusetts Puritans may not have approved of “observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way,” but Christmas was “kept in other countries” and increasing numbers of immigrants from those countries to the United States—particularly from Victorian England, Catholic Europe, and the German Lands—celebrated the day in their new American homes with many of their accustomed religious observances and national traditions.

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Caption Contest: Holiday Edition 2023

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 10 Comments

Ho! Ho! Ho! — a little nonsense for the end of the year

I found a photo. It needs a better caption. Something funny, and perhaps seasonal, too?

Highsmith, Carol M, photographer, “Santa and Mrs. Claus milk a cow. Why, we’re not exactly sure.” c. 1980-2010. Library of Congress

Send your entry (or entries, as many as you like!) to me via the blog’s “Leave a Reply | Write a Comment…” space. I’ll publish all the comments (let’s keep it clean and non-partisan) and I’ll pick a winner.1 Go to it, history lovers!

Needless to say, this photograph is—to the best of my knowledge—not related in any way to the Jonathan Clark House Museum, its board, staff, or volunteers. Except that it has a cow. And a barn. As did the Clark family back in the 1840s-1850s.

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Home to Thanksgiving

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I’m taking a few days off to spend time with family. But in the spirit of the holiday, I thought I’d reprint a lightly revised version of our now-annual Thanksgiving post, to share with you a few vintage recipes and a nice Currier & Ives lithograph from the period.1

Thanksgiving, 1867

Durrie, George H. and John Schutler, Home to Thanksgiving, ca. 1867, New York, Currier & Ives. National Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. Public Domain. Click to to open larger image in a new window.

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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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Veterans Day, 2023

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Veterans Day is today. For a 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 several times since. For Veterans Day, 2023 I have added several new links and one new photograph.

Armistice Day

One hundred and five 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. Jonathan’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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Searching for JMC’s roots: Lake Memphremagog

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

I’m still reading and transcribing the various “Returns of Persons names who have taken the Oaths” that I’ve found (so far) among the Land Petitions of Lower Canada, 1764-1841. The list-making has been slow going, and nothing is quite ready for posting.

So while you’re waiting for the next installment of our “Searching for JMC’s roots” investigation, I thought you might enjoy this autumnal, hand-colored lithograph of Lake Memphremagog, looking westward across the lake from the shoreline of the northwest part of Stanstead Township—or possibly southwest Hatley Township— toward the mountain known as the Owl’s Head in Potton Township.

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Searching for JMC’s roots: land grants – the official process, 1792

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Recently, we examined two competing petitions seeking a grant of land for what would become the township of Stanstead, Lower Canada. The first petition was successful, the second, not. We also suspect that many, if not most, of the signers of those petitions—including more that a dozen with Clark surnames—were probably not seriously interested in obtaining Crown lands and then pioneering in the wilderness of the 1790s Eastern Townships. As we continue our search for Jonathan M. Clark’s parents or other kin in 1790s and 1800s Lower Canada and adjacent Vermont and New Hampshire, how can we identify which Clarks might be related to JMC and which are not? What were the next steps for serious prospective Lower Canada immigrants and landowners?

In reviewing the secondary literature (part 1 and part 2) I learned, in a general way, what the next steps were for bona fide immigrants to Lower Canada, people that actually intended to settle in the townships and that desired a land grant. But some of the details were a bit vague. So I went and found the government’s official proclamation outlining the new land grant policy:

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Searching for JMC’s roots: Nope, not our Clark family…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

UPDATED, Oct. 31, 2023. Rearranged a few paragraphs to highlight the information about a son and grandson of Isaac “Old Rifle” Clark, Satterlee Clark, senior and junior.

As we proceed in our search for Jonathan M. Clark’s kin in the area where southern Québec meets northern Vermont and New Hampshire, I thought it would be useful to begin a list of various Clark-surnamed people that show up in our search, but we know (with reasonable certainty) are not JMC’s parents or other relatives.

I’m not going into great detail for each subject, but I’ll try and give enough info to make clear whom we are talking about, and why they are on the “Nope, not our Clark family…” list. Here is today’s installment.

Sir Alured Clarke, (c. 1745-1832)

Lieutenant Governor of Lower Canada, he helped implement the Constitutional Act of 1791—and its provisions for making grants of the Crown’s “Waste Lands” in the province—and his name appears on many of the early Lower Canada land petitions, including those for Stanstead and Hatley. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography has a fine, lengthy entry (illustrated with an engraved portrait) which concludes that Clarke was “a professional soldier whose modest talents and courteous manner had enabled him to discharge the civil duties of a colonial administrator without either distinguishing or disgracing himself.”

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