2020s

CHH News!

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / Leave a comment

Greetings and welcome to the 500th (!) post on this blog, originally titled “Clark House Historian” and since June 1, 2026, known as “Clark Heritage & History.” I have lots of history to share with you on the blog in the coming months, but for the moment I only have time for a short post, because…

I’m speaking in Portage on Sunday, June 7th.

Once again, my friends from the Wisconsin Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, have asked me to speak, this time at their Fort Winnebago Surgeon’s Quarters (FWSQ) museum, as part of their big celebration of early Wisconsin history, called “Becoming Wisconsin — A Revolutionary Path.”

I will be one of several presenters, at one of five different stations at the event. My focus will be on the extended family of Francis LeRoi (or LeRoy), the man that built the log cabin home and fur-trading post that later became the historic Fort Winnebago Surgeon’s Quarters. The story of Francis LeRoy and his family is a fine example of the complicated and intertwined French-Canadian, Métis, and Native American roots of many families that lived in this part of the future state of Wisconsin in the 18th- and 19th-centuries, and should appeal to anyone with interests in early Wisconsin history or genealogy. See the poster, above, for details, or continue reading…

Continue reading →

Farewell Old Cottage…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / Leave a comment

Farewell old cottage, cover image (detail) for the Stephen Foster song of the same title, published by Firth, Ford, & Co, New York, ca. 1851. Library of Congress

Changes

There’s been a change in my relationship with the Jonathan Clark House Museum, and that means that change is also coming to this blog, created and published by me since March, 2016, as “Clark House Historian.” In fact, this post is my 499th—and final—post under the blog title of “Clark House Historian.”

However, I will continue to write and publish this blog, under a new title, at the same web address, https://jchmhistorian.com/ and we will continue to explore many of the same Clark-era historical topics—and more! But the title of the blog will change. As of June 1, 2026, instead of “Clark House Historian,” this blog will be known as “Clark Heritage & History.”

If you are already a regular reader or free subscriber to the blog, thank you for reading! I value your support and interest. Subscribers, please let me know if you have any difficulty receiving the usual email announcements that appear in your inbox whenever a new post goes live. If you have active spam-blocking in your email inbox, you may want to change the “approved sender” for these CHH email announcements from the old “Clark House Historian” name to the new name: “Clark Heritage & History.” If you have any questions, comments, technical issues that need solving, please Contact me.

What’s going on?

Why the changes? Continue reading…

Continue reading →

It’s our 10th birthday!

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 4 Comments

This blog, Clark House Historian, published its first post 10 years ago today! (And just to be clear, the Clark House Historian blog is ten years old today. Reed Perkins, the Jonathan M. Clark House historian and author of the blog is, alas, a good deal older…)

Time to celebrate!

Our first post was a modest, two-paragraph “welcome” post, reproduced—in its entirety—below:

Continue reading →

CHH Year in Review, 2025

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 7 Comments

Harrison, Gabriel, “California News,” Daguerreotype, c. 1850. Metropolitan Museum of Art

What’s the news? I’ve gathered the expert—and stylish—editorial staff of Clark House Historian (see above) and together we proudly present the latest installment of our more-or-less annual Blog Year in Review!

Let’s begin with some blog statistics for 2025:

In some ways, 2025 was not a particularly productive year for CHH. I only managed to publish 35 posts, averaging less than one per week. Most posts were new material, but some were revised repeats of favorite seasonal and holiday topics, such as Christmas, Memorial Day, Veterans Day and such.

Meanwhile, “behind the scenes,” I was busy with some non-blog research projects, one focused on the post-Fred Beckmann history of the Wisconsin House building in Cedarburg, and another centered on the history and construction of the Jonathan Clark House.

Not surprisingly, with the number of CHH posts down, reader engagement dropped also, to a low of only 3 “likes” and 34 comments for the year. Just to be clear, I really do like to hear from y’all, so let me encourage you “like,” comment, and ask questions more often in 2026. Even if I’m working on a larger, longer, research project—which tends to slow my online blog production—I really enjoy reading and replying to your queries.

On the other hand, the number of blog subscribers increased in the past year. Clark House Historian currently has 86 subscribers. If you’d like to comment or subscribe, but don’t know how, click this link for all the “how to” details.

Monthly readership

As you can see (below), even though the number of new posts in 2025 was lower than in previous years, total blog readership was up substantially over 2024:

Continue reading →

Hot off the press…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

The new JCH Newsletter is here!

Hot off the (virtual) presses, the latest issue of the Jonathan Clark House Newsletter is here! Seven pages of JCH news, announcements, and photographs, recalling some of our summer 2025 activities and looking ahead to Fall at the Clark House. And fortunately for us—living in the 21st-century—no hand-typesetting, manual printing, or acid baths for copperplate engravings were required.

For all the details, and your own pdf copy of the new newsletter, click “Continue reading”…

Continue reading →

I’ve been busy…at the Portage! (part 2)

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

In a recent CHH post I wrote about my Saturday, August 16 visit to, and presentation at, the WSDAR’s excellent Fort Winnebago Surgeons Quarters historic site. That was worth a road trip in itself. But since I was heading up to Portage, I decided to make a history weekend out of the occasion. So on Friday the 15th, I spent a fine few hours touring the nearby Historic Indian Agency House and museum, just a short distance from the Surgeon’s Quarters across the old channel of the Fox River.

Historic Indian Agency House, 2025. Photo credit: Reed Perkins

The Historic Indian Agency House

The Historic Indian Agency House (HIAH) is one of Wisconsin’s oldest museums and a “must see”, for those of you interested in the early days of the Wisconsin Territory and the history of the state’s original Native American inhabitants and their forced removal during white settlement in the 1820s, ’30s and beyond. Like the nearby Fort Winnebago and its remaining Surgeon’s Quarters, the story of the HIAH overlaps and intersects with the story of Jonathan M. Clark and his 1833-1836 military service at Fort Winnebago’s headquarters post, Fort Howard, in Green Bay.

Continue reading →

Reminder – Saturday, May 3: JCH Special Movie Event!

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

Join us! this Saturday, May 3rd, 12:00-2:00 p.m., for a special screening of  FernGully, the Last Rainforest at the historic Rivoli Theater, W62N567 Washington Avenue in downtown Cedarburg . All proceeds to benefit the Jonathan Clark House Museum.

This unique event features a pre-screening illustrated talk by Oscar-nominated director Bill Kroyer,  featuring behind-the-scenes artwork and film clips. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. Come early and enjoy a specially-created, big-screen Clark House trivia quiz before the main event begins at Noon!

Continue reading →

JCH Special Event! Saturday, May 3.

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

The Jonathan Clark House is excited to announce a special screening of  FernGully, the Last Rainforest. on Saturday, May 3rd, 12:00-2:00 p.m., at the historic Rivoli Theater, W62N567 Washington Avenue in downtown Cedarburg. 

This unique event features a pre-screening presentation by Oscar-nominated director Bill Kroyer,  featuring behind-the-scenes artwork and film clips. 

Continue reading →

Help the Historian: Mysterious (Bible?) Fragment – a clue!

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

Among the real pleasures of writing a blog like this are the comments I receive from CHH readers. Recently, I heard from reader James Cornelius of nearby Grafton, Wisconsin,1 who had some thoughts about our January 24, 2025, post “Help the Historian: Mysterious (Bible?) Fragment.” 2

As the original post explained, I had been examining a number of loose Bonniwell papers, scraps, and other ephemera that were donated to the Clark House along with the Bonniwell family Bible itself, and I was particularly interested in one little fragment of printed text that had me baffled.

The mysterious fragment, sides A & B, photo credit: Reed Perkins, 2022.

In my original post, I examined the text and typography of the fragment and estimated that the it was published sometime between the late-sixteenth century (at the very earliest) and—at the very latest—the first decades of the nineteenth century. And the mentions of “Moon” and “motion” and such suggested a source that might be more scientific or philosophical, and not necessarily a sacred text, but I couldn’t think what that might be.

A new possible source: Almanacs!

In his comment, James observed: My hunch is that this triangular scrap /bookmark came from an almanac, likely as common in 1800-1820 U.K. as in U.S. a half-decade later. Many fairly good or detailed ‘scientific’ discussions appeared in the old almanacs or ‘farmer’s friends.’

I think James is on to something. Almanacs seem like a very plausible source. But how common were farmer’s almanacs in the UK, and how likely was it that the Bonniwells had access to these annual “farmer’s friends” in Chatham, Kent, England, in the years before their 1832 immigration to North America?

Continue reading →