Mark your calendars and save the date!
Saturday, March 1, 2025, from 9:00 am to Noon, the Jonathan Clark House Museum, at the corner of Bonniwell and Cedarburg Roads in Mequon, will host a special museum open house featuring an up-close exploration of our newly-acquired 1860 Plat Map of Mequon.
A True Story! from an unexpected source
Christmas is here, and I thought you might enjoy a repeat of this seasonal Turck family anecdote, “a true story,” as related in the pages of Correct English magazine, written, edited and published by Mequon pioneer Peter Turck’s granddaughter—and Mary (Turck) Clark’s niece—Josephine Turck Baker, and later collected with other similar tales and published as a book, Correct English in the Home, Chicago, 1909.
In the foreword to her book, the author explains:
When I was a little girl, like most children, I was very fond of listening to stories; but unlike most children, I did not care for fairy tales, my first question invariably being, ” IS IT A TRUE STORY?” I don’t want a “once upon a time” story.
This is a true story. The children, their names, the incidents narrated, are all true. Beatrice, Roschen, and the “Boitie,” are my children […]
For those who like really true stories of really true people with really true names, this little book is written. That it may instruct and entertain all readers, both little and big, young and grown up, is the earnest wish of
Yours for Correct English,
Josephine Turck Baker
Our Protagonists
Photo credits and dates: see notes below. Click gallery for larger images
Tonight is Christmas Eve, and I thought you might enjoy an expanded reprise of our 1867 Santa Claus story, originally posted in two parts, 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.
Well, whaddya know? Christmas is just around the corner…
JCH Parlour with Christmas tree and decor. Photo credit Reed Perkins
Holiday Lights 2024
December 2 & 3, 2024, brought us the latest edition of our Holiday Lights gathering of Clark house friends old and new. There was good food, tasty beverages, lively conversation, and fine seasonal music, all dished up in the unique ambience of our historic Jonathan Clark House Museum.
As we do every year, the house was decorated with appropriate 1840s-style decorations, including the table-top Christmas tree and ornaments, and the evergreen bough decorations on the window sills, shown above.
Continue readingThe Clark House Historian’s Christmas Wish List…
Kriss Kringle’s Christmas Tree [title page], E. Ferrett & Co., Philadelphia, 1845. Library of Congress
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and I remember the holiday thrill of riding the Chicago & Northwestern commuter train downtown with my parents, and then walking into the majestic State Street headquarters of Chicago’s grandest department store, Marshall Field & Company. Our mission? A trip up to the “toy floor” at Field’s, where we would wait in line to tell Santa all the wonderful things we would like to receive for Christmas that year.1
It goes without saying that I haven’t been able to fit on Santa’s lap for a very long time. But as the Clark House Historian, I still have holiday dreams and wishes, and today I’d like to share some of them with you. Who knows, perhaps Santa will work his magic once again?
(Official disclaimer: I do not serve on the JCH Board of Directors, or any of its committees. This is my Christmas daydream, a fantasy of what I’d like to see unfold at my favorite museum, given unlimited resources. And besides, as the great Chicago architect and city planner Daniel Burnham famously said: “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood!”)
My list is organized into several parts, the first of these is…
Continue readingIt’s Thanksgiving today, 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.
Continue readingIt’s been several weeks of seemingly endless organizing at my house. A useful and productive time, perhaps, spent sorting, reading, and filing paperwork, updating the household accounts, and getting ready to host our family’s Thanksgiving celebration. But not much time or energy for writing Clark House Historian posts. So in lieu of a new post, I thought you might enjoy an expanded reprise of this piece, first published here in March, 2022.
The need to sort, repair and organize is not limited to our era. I suspect the Clarks, Turcks, Bonniwells—and their neighbors—spent a good bit of time trying to catch up with their 19th-century chores, like this fellow, at work in his barn…
Guy, Seymour Joseph (1824–1910), Utilizing a Spare Moment, oil on canvas, c. 1860-1870. Yale University Art Gallery, public domain (CC0 1.0). Click to open larger image in new window.
Today’s image is an original oil painting from about 1860-1870, by the American artist Seymour Joseph Guy (1824-1910). It comes to us courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery. The Yale curators had this to say about the work:
Continue reading
Join us at the Cedarburg History Museum this Saturday!
Just a reminder: I’ve been asked back to the Cedarburg History Museum to give another talk in their 2024 Civil War lecture series. My topic will be “They Fought Like Devils” – the Black soldier and Wisconsin’s Civil War experience , a multi-faceted subject that is often overlooked when discussing Wisconsin’s part in the Civil War. All are invited to the presentation at 6:00 p.m., Saturday, September 28. Seating is limited, so to attend my talk—or any of the CHM free lectures—don’t forget to RSVP to museum director Joel Willems at 262-377-5856 or joel@cedarburghm.org to reserve a place.
Continue readingToday 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.
Continue readingI 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!
Continue reading