1800s

first decade of the 1800s

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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Nope, not our Clark family – Ft. Winnebago edition

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 5 Comments

Here’s another addition to our list of various Clark-surnamed people that show up in our search for Jonathan M. Clark’s kin, but we now know (with reasonable certainty) were not JMC’s parents or other relatives.

Today’s “Clark” subjects are connected to the history of the U.S. Army’s Fort Winnebago, and the surrounding area of Columbia County, Wisconsin Territory, during the decade of the 1830s.

Fort Winnebago was one of several posts in the upper Midwest garrisoned by the army’s Fifth Regiment of Infantry during Jonathan M. Clark’s three-year term in the army at Fort Howard (1833-1836). From about 1835-1836, the soldiers of the 5th regiment were responsible for cutting Wisconsin’s original east-west Military Road from Ft. Howard at Green Bay, to Ft. Winnebago at the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, and thence to Ft. Crawford at Prairie du Chien. In the 1830s, in addition to recent recruit Jonathan M. Clark, at least two other men with the Clark surname held positions with the 5th regiment in Wisconsin. Neither of these notable Clark men—it turns out—is related to JMC.

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 being added to the “Nope, not our Clark family…” list. Leading today’s installment is one of the 5th regiment’s senior officers and members of his pioneering family:

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Monday: Map Day! – One more (updated) look at Ouisconsin Territory, 1836

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

Today’s Monday: Map Day! revisits and makes a correction to an interesting map that we first discussed here on October 29, 2017, and then re-visited on July 11, 2020. And for unknown reasons, that original 2017 post—according to my monthly WordPress statistics report—was the most-viewed post on this site for the month of January, 2024, with 341 views (!).

Burr, David H. Map of the Northern Parts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and Michigan and that part of the Ouisconsin Territory lying East of the Mississippi River, 1836, detail of title & author. Library of Congress.

The 2020 re-post was originally conceived as a kind of addendum to our June-July, 2020, multi-part discussion of the earliest Wisconsin territorial, state, and federal censuses. It also served to locate Jonathan M. Clark in Wisconsin Territory during his U.S. Army service from September, 1833, to September 19, 1836.

Today’s post includes one particular correction that I’ve been meaning to make for a while. When I added my original annotations to a detail of this map (in red), in 2017, I made an error. I mislabeled Sgt. Jonathan M. Clark’s location at the time he mustered out of service, a temporary army camp along the under-construction military road from Fort Howard (Green Bay) to Fort Winnebag0 (Portage). JMC’s muster-out location was always referred to in the records of the Fifth Regiment of Infantry as “Camp Hamilton.” For some reason, when I made my annotated detail map, I incorrectly labeled this place “Ft. Hamilton.” A minor error, but worth correcting , especially now that this map is receiving fresh attention.1

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.2  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 this:

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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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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: 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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Searching for JMC’s roots: another (!) Stanstead Associates petition, 1792

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Our previous post, Searching for JMC’s roots: Stanstead’s original Associates petition, 1792, went into some detail about the creation of the original petition to the Crown for the township that would become Stanstead, Lower Canada. In order to avoid repetition—and keep today’s post to a manageable length—I’m going to recommend that you read that post before reading this one. Because today we have another, competing petition, by a (mostly?) different set of Leaders and Associates, also signed in Rutland, Vermont, not quite two weeks after the previous petition.

I’m not going to examine all the aspects of this second petition today, but there are some features that we should note as we search for Jonathan M. Clark’s kin along the New England and Lower Canada border regions in the 1790s and early 1800s.

John Prentiss…and Associates

Library and Archives Canada, Petition of John Prentiss, detail showing government notations. See below for full citation.

The organizing meeting for this second group of would-be Stanstead (and Hatley) associates appears to have been held in Rutland, Vermont, on April 16th, 1792. As you’ll see (below), the ink and handwriting of the first signer, John Prentiss, appear identical with that of the petition statement itself (and many of the other signatures at the head of the petition!).

According to the Land Committee clerk’s handwritten notes (above), the petition was presented by and endorsed with the signatures of [presumed Leader] John Prentiss, [presumed Associates] Asahel Blanchard, Andw. [Andrew] Mills, Festus Hill and 325 others in Rutland, April 16th, 1792. It was received by the Lieutenant Governor’s office on May 28th and referred to the Land Committee the next day.

The petition, front side

Below is the front side to the original, complete, Associates petition for the two proposed townships, as found among the Land Petitions of Lower Canada, 1764-1841, RG 1 L3L, Vol. 160, archival page number 78473. As with the previous (Josiah Sawyer) petition, it appears that the microfilm camera operator needed two exposures to capture the full contents of the front side of this oversized page. I have used software to stitch the overlapping images back together, so that you can view the page as it looked in 1792:

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Searching for JMC’s roots: Stanstead’s original Associates petition, 1792

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 5 Comments

UPDATED: 25, 27 and 28 Oct. 2023. See note 8 for details.

Under the unique Leaders and Associates land grant system of early Lower Canada, one of the first and essential steps in obtaining a grant of land from the Crown was to assemble at least 40 (purported) would-be immigrants—often from northern New York and the New England states—and have them sign an official petition requesting a grant of such land. The leaders might be directly involved in the signature gathering process, or they might delegate their tasks to an “agent.”

In 1791, when the Constitutional Act creating Upper and Lower Canada was passed by the British Parliament, Stanstead’s original leaders Eleazar Fitch and Issac Ogden were living and doing business in St. John’s and Montréal, respectively. It’s probable that neither man ever got close to the future Stanstead Township, or northern New York and the New England states1. As we suggested at the end of an earlier post, Fitch and Ogden appear to have delegated the petition process to a farmer (and would-be “Leader” of yet another Eastern Township or two) named Josiah Sawyer.2

Library and Archives Canada, search results for today’s petition. See below for full citation.

Josiah Sawyer, agent

From what I can surmise, one of the main functions of an Agent in the Lower Canada land grant process was to begin the new township project by obtaining the signatures of the required minimum number of Associates on a petition to the government for that land. As we learned earlier, this would usually include a payment from the Leaders to each petition-signing Associate, and—for those Associates that did not intend to actually settle in the new township—the collection of the necessary signed forms deeding the Associates’ hoped-for 200 acre allotments back to the Leaders, for them to hold or re-sell as they deemed most profitable.

The organizing meeting for Stanstead’s associates appears to have been held in Rutland3, Vermont, on April 3rd, 1792. The ink and handwriting of the first signer, Josiah Sawyer, appear identical with that of the petition statement itself, suggesting that Josiah Sawyer was, indeed, the man that organized the signing of this document.

The original petition, front side

Here is the front side to the original, complete Associates’ petition for the proposed Township of Stanstead, as found in the Land Petitions of Lower Canada, 1764-1841, RG 1 L3L, Vol. 175, archival page number 84887. Originally, the microfilm camera operator needed two exposures to capture the full contents of each side of this oversized page.4 I have used software to stitch the overlapping images back together, so that you can view (and try to read!) the document as it looked in 1792.

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Monday: Map Day! Vermont, 1796

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

As we continue our search for JMC’s roots I thought a Monday: Map Day! post might be useful, helping us get a sense of the geography and history of settlement of early northern Vermont, especially the parts adjacent to Stanstead and the other newly-surveyed Eastern Townships of Lower Canada.1

Vermont has a long and complicated history, and I won’t try to summarize it here. Among other fun facts, you should note that Vermont was not one of the original 13 American colonies and was, for a number of years prior to statehood in 1791, an independent republic. For an introduction to Vermont’s fascinating past, a fine place to start are the Wikipedia articles on Vermont: history and the Vermont Republic.

Today’s map was published in 1796, five years after Vermont’s admission to the Union, and four years after one Josiah Sawyer organized the gathering of would-be land purchasing “associates” in Rutland, Vermont, on April 3rd, 1792, at which time the initial petition for the prayed-for township of Stanstead was signed. Many, perhaps most, of the petition signers were Vermonters. Let’s look at our map and see what we can discover about Vermont—and its relationship to Lower Canada settlement—in those early years.

As always, click each image to open a larger, higher-resolution copy of the image in a new window.

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