What a week…
I’m working on several Clark House research projects, but taking a break from writing today. Meanwhile, here’s another lovely photo of autumn in the Upper Midwest:
Continue readingEarly Election Returns!
While we’re all waiting for this year’s votes to be counted, here’s a revised and updated repeat of a post that first appeared here on November 8, 2016.
Really early returns, from Mequon’s—and Washington County’s— first election, 1840.
In an earlier post, I outlined some of the key moments in the settlement and changing political boundaries of early Washington/Ozaukee county. Originally attached to Milwaukee County for all civil and judicial matters, old Washington County got its civil independence by act of the Territorial Legislature on February 19, 1840. And on “the second Monday of October next,” i.e., October 12, 1840, the first election to chose county officers was held at the Mequon home of Taylor Heavilon.1, 2
Continue readingElection Day, 2020
or, How to Preserve Our Constitutional Republic
A guide for the perplexed…
- Today is Election Day
- Every voter should have free, fair, safe, convenient access to the polls
- If you haven’t done so already, go vote
- After the polls close, count all the votes
- This may take time
- In some locations, this may take days
- We are adults, we can wait
Follow these steps and you—yes, you—will help preserve, protect, and defend our constitution and representative government, and also prevent embarrassing and potentially de-stabilizing nonsense like this:
Continue readingMonday: Map Day! – Lower Canada ranges and lots
Finding our way on Bouchette’s 1815 Topographical Map…
Last Monday—as part of our ongoing search for Jonathan M. Clark’s roots in northern Vermont and Lower Canada—we introduced Joseph Bouchette’s huge and minutely detailed Topographical map of the Province of Lower Canada, published in London in 1815. Today’s post picks up where we left off last week, so if you missed that introduction, I recommend you click here and read it first.
For easy reference, here’s the complete, original map again:
Continue readingFall Colors
October is almost over, and in Jonathan M. Clark’s world—the Upper Midwest, New England, and southern Canada—that can mean beautiful blue skies framing the vivid autumn yellows, oranges, and reds of the maples and the varied greens of the firs.
Continue readingPresidential Elections — the early years…
Well, the big day is just a week away. Here at Clark House Historian I try and remain officially non-partisan. But as a researcher and writer, and as an American with long, deep, roots in this country, I have a passionate interest in our nation and its history, and a life-long desire to see us live up to our highest ideals and aspirations. (Of course, human nature being what it is, we have not always lived up to those ideals.)
So with the election approaching, today’s post takes a look at the political leanings of early Washington County and—after its establishment in 1853—Ozaukee County, with an emphasis on presidential elections from 1848 to 1880. Our main source today is the invaluable History of Washington and Ozaukee counties, Wisconsin […], published in Chicago in 1881. Let’s begin with some of the earliest results, following statehood in early 1848:
Continue readingMonday: Map Day! – Lower Canada, 1815
I found Bouchette’s 1815 Topographical Map of Lower Canada…
In our previous post, we looked at a verbal description of Stanstead, Lower Canada, excerpted from A Topographical Description of the Province of Lower Canada, with Remarks upon Upper Canada, and on the relative connexion of both provinces with the United States of America, written by Joseph Bouchette, surveyor general of Lower Canada, and published in London in 1815.
To accompany his 1815 book, Bouchette published a map of the province, and it’s an amazing map, with an extravagant title:
To His Royal Highness George Augustus Frederick … This Topographical map of the Province of Lower Canada, shewing its division into Districts, Counties, Seigniories, & Townships … Is … Most gratefully dedicated by… Joseph Bouchette, His Majesty’s Surveyor General of the Province & Lieutt. Colonel C.M. … Published by W. Faden, Charing Cross, Augst. 12th. 1815. Engraved by J. Walker & Sons, 47 Bernard Street, Russell Square, London. J. Walker sculp.
Rumsey Collection
For simplicity’s sake, I’ll refer to it as Bouchette’s Topographical map of the Province of Lower Canada, 1815. The original is held in the vast David Rumsey Map Collection at Stanford University. And in the words of their curators,
[t]he large ten sheet map is extraordinary – it is over ten feet long when joined and almost five feet tall. It has five views and three large inset maps of Montreal, Quebec, and Three Rivers. The detail and graphic elegance of the large map is the equal (or perhaps the superior) of any of the contemporary maps that we have seen (and none of which are on such a large scale – the only potential candidate would be Eddy’s Map of the Country Thirty Miles Round the City of New York). Of course the engraving was done by the Walker firm in London, whose resources were up to the New York and Philadelphia engravers, or better, so a comparison with American produced maps is not entirely fair. Bouchette’s work as Surveyor General must have instilled in him an obsession with the accuracy and fineness of detail that one sees in these maps.
Rumsey Collection
So enough fanfare. Let’s look at the map:
Continue readingStanstead, 1815 — a portrait in words
In our previous post we looked at a charming lithograph of Kilborn’s Mills, Stanstead, Lower Canada, as seen from Derby, Vermont, based on an 1827 watercolor by Lt. Col. Joseph Bouchette, the surveyor general of Lower Canada. This was a place and a view that Jonathan M. Clark would have easily recognized as a teenaged lad of 15 or 16 years of age.
I first saw a version of that image as a black and white engraving in Bouchette’s book The British Dominions of North America […], Vol. 1, published in London in 1831. I’ll have more to say about The British Dominions in future posts.
Bouchette’s earlier book
Bouchette also wrote an earlier book—focused on Lower Canada—entitled A Topographical Description of the Province of Lower Canada, with Remarks upon Upper Canada, and on the relative connexion of both provinces with the United States of America, published in London in 1815. Here’s the title page of that earlier book:
Continue readingA view of Stanstead, Lower Canada, 1827
I’m working on some longer posts, so I thought you might enjoy this image of a hand-colored lithograph from 1827. It’s a view the village of Kilborn’s Mills, Stanstead, Lower Canada, as seen from the south side of the international border, near Derby Line, Vermont. It’s very likely that the 15- or 16-year-old Jonathan M. Clark would have known this scenery, village, bridge, and border crossing:
Continue readingMonday: Map Day! – Lower Canada, 1802, part 2
Still getting our bearings at the turn of the 19th-century
As we discussed in a few weeks ago, 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 summary, you can skim this article, and then be sure to look at part 1 of this post. In part 1, I wrote that “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.”
Well, I was wrong. Because “a few basic places and dates” seriously underestimates the complex and changing nature of place names and legal boundaries in Lower Canada during that period. So today I’m going to take another look at the 1802 Lower Canada map and point out some additional places and terms that will be useful in locating Clark-related documents created in the English-speaking part of the province at the turn of the nineteenth century. So, remember this map? …
Continue reading
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