1860s

Nope. Not our…Henry Clark in the Civil War

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins.

Today we introduce a new category on Clark House Historian, one that I’m calling “Nope. Not our…”

What’s “Nope. Not our…” all about? Well, it’s about keeping track of some of the most important dead ends and disambiguation efforts that are—in fact—a huge “behind the scenes” part of the research that goes into this blog.

“Nope. Not our…” An all-too typical day in the Clark House Historian’s office.1

The fact is, I spend a lot of time chasing down “hot tips” for various unsolved Clark House history mysteries and, sadly, many of those promising clues turn out to be duds. From time to time I have written blog posts discussing specific erroneous or misleading bits of information, and then adding clarifying or corrected information and documents for the record.

But some ambiguous or promising Clark House Historian research paths are so complicated—and have taken so much time to research and document before being proven incorrect—that I need to create a more organized record of which research approaches were tried, and how each succeeded or failed. And since this blog is where I “show my work” as we uncover new chapters of Clark House history, I thought it was time for a CHH category dedicated to eliminating confusion and error in our search for a more complete and accurate history of the Clark House and its pioneering residents and neighbors.

And so we present our new category: “Nope. Not our…” And the honor of the first “Nope” post goes to:

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Memorial Day, 2023

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 5 Comments

Lest We Forget

Our annual Memorial Day post, first published in 2020. Updated for 2023 with new information about Evander B. Bonniwell’s service.

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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Rabbits!

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

Audubon, John James, artist, and John T. Bowen, printer, Lepus Sylvaticus, Bachman, circa 1845-1848, Smithsonian Institution, Peters Prints Collection, Creative Commons CC0 license.1

There they are: Mr. & Mrs. Cottontail and one of their many offspring. The Eastern Cottontail and its relatives were a common sight in Jonathan and Mary Clark’s world, just as they are today.

We seem to have a bumper crop of rabbits in our suburban Wisconsin yard this year and, no doubt about it, the bunnies are cute and entertaining. But for the gardener, rabbits mean trouble. If you are trying to raise vegetables and fruits to feed your pioneer family, these amusing little fur balls are the enemy. They can consume huge amounts of seedlings and sprouts in just a day or two. What’s a gardener to do?

Last year—after they ate through the plastic fence around our vegetable garden and then devoured our entire crop of green been sprouts—I went to the local big box store and got a roll of metal wire rabbit fencing and some steel posts to hold it up. That worked great for us, but it made me wonder: what did Jonathan and Mary Clark use to keep the ravenous rabbits at bay? Well, I don’t have any documentation from the Clarks’ farm, but during my researches, I have noticed some popular 19th-century methods of rabbit control.

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The farm garden

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 4 Comments

It’s already the third week of May, 2023, and summertime will soon be here. At our southeastern Wisconsin home the first spring flowers are done, and the next round of blossoms have been blooming for a week or two. The peas are in the ground and already about 8 inches high, the rhubarb is big enough to cut and make one or two pies, and we harvested the first half-dozen radishes today. We still have to put in the tomato and pepper seedlings and start the big patch of green beans. So with gardening on my mind, I thought you might enjoy a slightly-belated repost of this annual favorite, which first appeared here in April, 2021. Cheers!

Planning the garden

It’s early April, and the growing season is not far off. For a farmer like Jonathan M. Clark, it’s a little early yet for plowing and sowing, but not too early to make plans and sharpen the tools. For a farmer’s wife, like Mary (Turck) Clark, it’s not too soon to think about the farm garden, its crops and layout.

I don’t know if Mary and Jonathan were regular readers of the popular and affordable farmers’ almanacs of their era; I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. There were many to chose from. Perhaps they had a copy of something like:

The Cultivator […], New Series, Vol. VII, Albany, 1850, title page. Click to open larger image in new window.

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The Cooper

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

In the 1800s there were no corrugated cardboard boxes or padded shipping envelopes. If you needed to store or ship any liquid—and most dry goods—the barrel (and its larger and smaller cousins) was almost always your container of choice.

Anderson, Alexander, engraver. Five Men on a Flatboat With Barrels and Sacks; One Man Operates the Keel from Above the Boathouse, the Others Are Resting on the Freight, circa 1830-1860, Library of Congress.

And when you needed a barrel, hogshead, keg, cask or firkin, or just an oaken bucket for your well, you would get it from a cooper.

Unknown photographer. Occupational Portrait of a Cooper, Three-Quarter Length, With Barrel and Tools, circa 1840-1860, Library of Congress.

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Time flies!

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 6 Comments

[Editor], daguerreotype with added color highlights c.1855 (slightly cropped, and color adjusted), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Charles Isaacs, (link), Creative Commons CC0 license. Click to open larger image in new window.

Hey! It’s almost been a month since my last post. Sorry about that. I haven’t gone this long between posts in several years, I think, and now I’ve got (the digital equivalent of) a towering pile of half-written posts to finish and topics to discuss. That said, I have been busy…

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Holiday Fun in NYC, 1864

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

I’m still taking some time to relax and catch up on my reading. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this Revised! and Enhanced! holiday post that first appeared last December.
UPDATED: 28 Dec.2022 to correct a minor error about the “Bower of Beauty” illustrations.

It’s the week after Christmas. Perhaps you have family or friends visiting from out of town. If you have children, they’re home from school. How to keep them entertained? If you lived near New York City in 1864, you were in luck. Barnum’s American Museum was ready with spectacular and unique holiday exhibits for the whole family, all for the low, low, price of 25 cents for adults, 15 cents for children under age ten!

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Christmas-Tide: an 1860s Turck family tale

/ Clark House Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

A True Story! from an unexpected source

Christmas is here, and I thought you might enjoy this seasonal Turck family anecdote, “a true story,” as related in the pages of Correct English magazine, written, edited and published by 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

Josephine Turck Baker, pub. 1907
Beatrice Turck Baker, pub. 1909
Roschen Turck Baker, pub. 1909

Photo credits and dates: see notes below. Click gallery for larger images

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