1830s

Sources: The Old Military Road

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

I just put the final edits on my upcoming presentation for the Fall Meeting of the Wisconsin Society, Daughters of the American Revolution. I’ll be talking about Wisconsin’s first federal road—the Old Military Road—and the men that built it, including our own Jonathan M. Clark.

One of my WSDAR presentation slides. From left: JMC’s army post, Fort Howard (Green Bay), JMC’s army enlistment paper, JMC portrait photo.

My talk is scheduled to run for 30 minutes and, as is often the case, I had to cut a lot of information from the presentation in order to keep it inside the time limit. But I don’t want all of those research tidbits to go to waste, so I’m going to post them in a few posts here on the blog. Today, I’m going to list, comment on, and link to some of the key sources that helped me put my WSDAR presentation together. If you have any interest in Wisconsin’s early roads and related transportation issues, I encourage you to check out these sources. Most are freely available online, and I’ll provide links where I can. Happy reading!

Durbin & Durbin, 1984

To my knowledge, the best, most detailed, and most comprehensively researched and documented article about the Military Road remains “Wisconsin’s Military Road: Its Genesis and Construction” by Richard D. Durbin and Elizabeth Durbin. It was published in Wisconsin Magazine of History (WMH), Vol. 68, No. 1, Fall, 1984.

The Durbins appear to have consulted a huge number of primary sources, especially the deep collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Their article is lavishly illustrated with vintage and modern maps, and will allow the reader to retrace the path of the original Military Road through modern Wisconsin. The authors also document in great detail the many twists and turns of the road’s legislative and appropriations history and the military’s involvement in the project.

Durbin and Durbin is essential reading for this subject, and can be read for free via the Wisconsin Magazine of History Archives at WHS’s excellent website (link to article). And speaking of the Wisconsin Magazine of History…

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Labor Day – a photo essay

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Today is Labor Day, the holiday celebrating the working men and women of our nation, and I thought I’d commemorate the day with a lightly-revised re-post of this piece from 2023.

This Labor Day, I’ll be at home, working on my upcoming lectures for the state DAR and the Cedarburg History Museum. Last year, I had to work at our local mercantile establishment. You know, a store kind of like this one, only much bigger, stocked with just about anything you need for modern living:

I don’t really have the day “off” today—too much writing to do—and won’t be marching in a parade, but I’d still like to honor the holiday and salute the American worker, past and present. With that in mind, let’s revisit some of the nineteenth-century occupations we’ve talked about previously at Clark House Historian, highlighting a few of the many skills, trades, and occupations common during the Clark House era.

Since it is a holiday, I’m not going to add long commentaries to each photo. Enjoy the photo galleries, and click each gallery to open larger versions of each image. And click the highlighted links to visit the original CHH posts, filled with lots more information about the different skills, tools, and jobs, and the full image credits.

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CHH news and updates: August 28, 2024

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

I know it’s been a while since my last post, but I’ve been busy! Jonathan Clark House executive director Nina Look and I just finished the latest JCH newsletter, and there’s a lot of Clark House history coming your way this fall, both here on the blog, and “live and in person.” In particular, I’m currently racing to finish not one, but two, illustrated presentations that I’ll be giving in September.

JMC, the Old Military Road, and the DAR

I’ve been asked to speak at the Fall Workshop of the Wisconsin Society, Daughters of the American Revolution. My topic will be “Building the Military Road, Wisconsin Territory’s First Federal Road.” I’ll be incorporating much of the 1830s and ’40s army and road-building information that I’ve blogged about here at CHH, as well as new primary source materials and contemporary illustrations.

The presentation will take place after dinner, Friday, September 13, at the WSDAR Fall Workshop in Oshkosh. The event is limited to registered DAR members and their guests. My thanks to Wisconsin State Regent Sandra Snow and the members of the WSDAR for their kind invitation to speak.

But wait…there’s more!

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Not our Jonathan: other “J. M. Clarks” in 1830s & ’40s Wisconsin (part 1)

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

“Estray. […] J. M. Clark” advertisement, Southport [later Kenosha] Telegraph, Dec. 26, 1843, page 4

Hey! How did Mequon’s Jonathan M. Clark end up with a stray red and white heifer on his farm in…Pleasant Prairie, the most southeasterly township in all of Wisconsin, some 56 miles south of the Jonathan Clark House? The short answer is: he didn’t. The man that placed this “stray cow” advertisement in the December 16, 1843, issue of the Southport (later Kenosha) Telegraph was is not “our” J. M. Clark.

So many J. M. Clarks

Throughout the nineteenth century, many men seem to have been referred to, at least in print, by the initial letters of their first and middle names. The builder of Mequon’s Jonathan Clark House was no exception. Many of the documents made during his lifetime refer to him as “J. M. Clark,” and he often signed his name that way as well.1

“J. M. Clark,” signature of Jonathan M. Clark, from his final U.S. naturalization papers, 1853.

Unless the researcher is careful, it’s easy to make assumptions and presume that the “J. M. Clark” that built our historic Mequon home in 1848 is identical with the other “J. M. Clark” men that appear in various Wisconsin Territory documents, land patents, newspapers, and histories. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. To be certain that the “J. M. Clark” referred to in a particular source is “our” Jonathan M. Clark, we need to understand the “who, what, where and when” of each document or event that may—or may not— have involved our Jonathan.

I’m sure my list of suspects is incomplete, but (surprise!) it has turned out to be much longer and more complicated than anticipated. With that in mind, I think I’m going to need several CHH posts to sort out some of the most easily mistaken “J. M. Clark” men that lived and worked in the central and southeastern parts of Wisconsin Territory, yet were definitely not our J. M. Clark, the man born in Lower Canada (or Vermont) in 1812 that went on to build the historic Jonathan Clark House in Mequon in the 1840s.2

Let’s start with earliest and most northerly of these settlers, the first of several Christian ministers surnamed Clark that had links to Wisconsin Territory army posts that were home to our Jonathan M. Clark and his comrades during their service with the U. S. Army’s 5th regiment of infantry, 1833-1836.

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Monday: Map Day! – Lower Canada’s Eastern Townships in 1842

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

The Search for JMC’s roots continues!1 For the last few months, I’ve spent hour after hour reading through hundreds of digitized pages of the various manuscript land petitions and related documents that form the Land Petitions of Lower Canada, 1764-1841 database at Library and Archives of Canada (LAC).2

The good news is that I have found a lot of information about various early Clark (or Clarke) surname immigrants that petitioned for land—and actually settled on it—in Lower Canada during the relevant years of circa 1791-1840. Many of the documents that I’ve found contain information about these Clark immigrants, their families, and from whence they come. This is important, as we need to sort the Patriot, Vermont-related Clark families from other Clark immigrants from New York and New England (including American Loyalists), and the various Anglo-Canadian Clark families that sought land in the Eastern Townships at the same time. So, you know what that means…

We need another map!

Now that we have all this data, we need a way to organize and present it. And since so many of our rejected candidates earn their “Nope, not our Clark family” status because they settled far away from Stanstead, I thought it was time to make a big map of where these various Clark petitioners for Lower Canada land actually ended up. Then, in theory, we can eliminate the Clark families that settled “too far” from Stanstead (and adjacent Derby, Vermont), and focus on the Clarks that settled in or near Stanstead itself.

It’s going to take a while to assemble and present all the data. So we need a big, easy to read map created around the time of Jonathan Clark’s childhood and/or youth, from about 1812 until his arrival in New York state in 1831. (The latter date is flexible, as long as we find a map that predates the reorganization of the townships into larger counties in 1847.) We’ve presented some great Lower Canada maps here at CHH but, as is typical of that era, if they are accurate and detailed, they also tend to be visually “busy” and hard to read. But, dear readers, I finally found just the thing…

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JMC: The missing years, 1836-1839

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

I’m still on the search for Jonathan M. Clark’s parents and other kin somewhere in the early-19th-century wilderness of northern Vermont and southern Québec. I hope to publish more about that here in the near future.

As part of that project, I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past few months organizing and re-examining the many research materials that I’ve gathered about JMC and his world, and I’ve constructed a whole bunch of genealogies for early Vermont, New Hampshire, and Lower Canada families named Clark that turn out—alas!—not to be related to our Jonathan M. Clark.

More mysteries…

Along with the mystery of JMC’s still-unknown family and childhood, Clark House museum director Nina Look and I have been trying to chase down some rumors that suggest Jonathan Clark may have spent his three years between mustering out of the U.S. Army (in 1836), and purchasing land at the land office in Milwaukee (in late 1839), as a surveyor in or near the area around Fort Winnebago, Columbia County, Wisconsin Territory. At the moment, that story remains a mystery, too. I’ll let you know if we find out more.

Anyway, with all these facts, rumors and mysteries—and many, many others—rolling around in my head, I thought it might be useful to outline JMC’s life in a handy, chronological timeline. Here’s a draft of that timeline, including what we do—and don’t—know about Jonathan M. Clark’s whereabouts and activities during his lifetime, as of July 1, 2024. I’ve included links to some relevant Clark House Historian posts where possible; please click on them for more information.

Childhood & Youth

November 28, 1812, (possibly, 1811) born to unknown parents, in or near Derby, VT, or Stanstead, Lower Canada

• Late-1812 to early-1831: JMC’s childhood whereabouts and activities unknown for 18+ years, with one possible exception:

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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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How do you…? A Clark-era handbook

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Recently, reader and Jonathan Clark House friend Ed Foster mentioned that he wanted to know more about how various JCH tools were used and necessary supplies were made, for example, how were lye soap or candles made? These are excellent questions, as they help us understand the day-to-day world of the Clarks and their neighbors in a more vivid and detailed way.

So, how did Jonathan and Mary Clark make candles or soap or perform many of the other home- and farm-related tasks that occupied so much of their time? Living in their pre-internet, pre-YouTube era, if they did not learn these skills from a parent or other mentor, how did they master such skills on their own? Fortunately for them, the 19th-century was a golden era of what we would call “How To” books.

The “Endless Variety” of books, circa 1837

Jonathan M. Clark mustered out of the U.S. Army at the end of his three-year’s service with Co. K, 5th Regiment Infantry, in September, 1836. While in service, he may have learned or refined a number of useful skills, especially those related to surveying and road construction. The army thought highly enough of his character and aptitude that he rose from private soldier in September, 1833, to Sergeant in 1836. He was, by several accounts, an intelligent and well-read man.

But even an intelligent, experienced man can’t know everything. For that, there were books and stores that sold them. If Jonathan, after he left the army, needed more information on the “practical arts,” he could stop by a shop such as White & Gallup’s “Variety Store” in Green Bay, and probably find the information he needed:

“Books,” advertisement from the [Green Bay] Wisconsin Democrat, 13 Jan 1838, page 1. First published 12 Dec 1837.

One of these advertised volumes caught my eye, just like it may have attracted the eye of Jonathan Clark and many other settlers in the wilds of the Wisconsin Territory in the 1830s…

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Memorial Day, 2024

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Lest We Forget

Our annual Memorial Day post, first published in 2020. Updated for 2024 with new information about the Civil War service of Isham and Emily (Bigelow) Day’s eldest child, Cpl. James Lemon Day (1834-1863).

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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Lost in the underbrush…

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Advertisement, “Choppers Wanted,” Milwaukee Sentinel, August 27, 1839, page 3.

After years of searching for original reports and drawings or photographs of early Wisconsin road construction, I find myself entangled among piles of information and images on just that topic. Now, the challenge is to organize the best of this material into a few CHH blog posts and wrap up—for now—our most recent excursion along Wisconsin’s earliest roads.1

Like contractor George E. Graves in Sauk Harbor [Port Washington] in 1834 (above), I could probably use the assistance of some (digital) “axe-men” to clear my way forward. Perhaps some hearty fellows such as these…

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