Tag: William John Clarke

Between Two Contending Forces

On By BrooksongIn Clarke, Family History3 Comments

 

In my last entry I speculated whether events other than the deaths of two of his adult children drove my great- great-grandfather, William John Clarke, to take his own life in October of 1894. A comment from my brother-in-law about the financial panic of 1893 jogged my memory and sent me scurrying back to review Rulers & Rebels, A People’s History of Early California, 1769-1901 by Laurence Shoup. I recently read this book with particular interest in how historical events may have affected my ancestors who farmed north of Sacramento. After more careful review, and getting my dates straight—bingo! Not only was there a panic in 1893—the biggest depression the country had ever faced up until that time—but a railroad strike occurred in the summer of 1894 which had dire effects on the farmers in California who were unable to get their crops to market, or even acquire sacks to harvest the wheat in.

 

The 1870 census states that William John Clarke’s real estate was worth $124,440 and his personal estate was worth $20,000, so he was quite well off. Although there was also a financial panic and a railroad strike in the mid 1870s, he seems to have weathered those crises. But by the fall of 1894, when he took his life, he may have been wiped out by one-two punch of the depression in 1893 followed by not being able to get his wheat and other crops to market during the summer of 1894. As supporting evidence I offer a line from a letter written by Clarke’s stepdaughter (my great grandmother), Lizzie (Tenney) Clarke Cain, after her stepfather’s death. She states that William John Clarke was once well-to-do but the land was mortgaged and “it all went for bad debt”. I have also been able to read the probate proceedings that occurred after Clarke’s death on the Ancestry.com website. Clarke’s widow, Catherine (Foster) Tenney Clarke, was left only with their home and some personal belongings. It is true that everything else was sold off or repossessed.

 

The Pullman Strike of 1894 affected the entire country, but was particularly brutal in California. The strike began when the American Railroad Union called for a nation-wide strike against the Pullman Company in Chicago, where workers were being subjected to horrible conditions. It was not a strike against all railroads, only the Pullman Company. All trains were to be allowed passage with the exception of those carrying Pullman cars. Southern Pacific in California reacted by unnecessarily placing Pullman cars on every train, including mail trains, whether they needed them or not.

 

The strike was largely supported by the populace initially, because it was largely recognized that the railroads had a monopoly while both state and federal governments looked the other way. When Eugene Debs, the leader of the American Railroad Union was testifying before Congress during the strike, he was asked if he believed in government ownership of the railroads. He replied,

“Yes sir; I believe that Government ownership of railroads is decidedly better than railroad ownership of the Government.”

However, as the strike went on and became more violent, and neither side would compromise, public support began to wane.

 

The governor had called up the National Guard, sending them to Sacramento to guard the Southern Pacific Railroad yard. Hundreds of strikers were also in the area and things were quite tense. The Woodland Daily Democrat ran an editorial on July 2, 1984, that summed up the situation:

 

It is an anomaly in civilized society in having some of the characteristics of organized warfare in presence of the reign of law and peace. That is the condition that confronts the people of California today.

The opposing forces are the Southern Pacific Company on one side and its employes [sic], swayed and influenced by a powerful labor union, on the other. In such a conflict it is to be presumed that both sides are prepared to make some sacrifices that will involve losses to both of a very serious character. Both seem to fear that if any concessions are made looking to a settlement, precedents will be established that will in the future operate to the disadvantage of whichever party makes the concession.

The corporation contends that the success of the strikers will mean that henceforth the most trifling differences between labor and capital will be arbitrarily settled by the interference of labor organizations, and that every employer in the country will be made a party to any trouble that may exist between every other employer and his help.

On the other hand the labor organizations insist that this is a boycott against Pullman and not a strike against the Southern Pacific, as they have no grievance against that company, and that if Pullman triumps[sic] they will be crushed and labor may as well surrender unconditionally to aggregated capital and organized monopoly, all the rights for which it is now contending.

Between these two contending forces, and in no way responsible for the actions of either, stands the public, the inoffending people, whose losses are infinitely more than the combined losses of both parties to the irrepressible conflict. Business is at a standstill; freight and passenger traffic are blocked; grain cannot be harvested, because the farmer can get no sacks; thousands of tons of fruit are rotting, because transportation is denied; and all this is occurring at a time when the people are least able to withstand the effects of such a disaster. They have not recovered from the effects of the recent panic, and it would be impossible to imagine a greater misfortune to California interests than that these labor troubles should have occurred at this time.

 

The information I’ve read about William John Clarke’s suicide stated that he was despondent over the deaths of two of his adult children. It’s true he shot himself on the grave of his son Willie. You can’t say he didn’t have a flair for the dramatic. But Willie had been dead for four years. And Celia, his youngest daughter, had died almost a year previously. I can’t say that sadness around the deaths of his children didn’t play into his decision to end his life. But it just didn’t add up for me. In investigating the historical events of the time I found what I submit is a more believable reason for his suicide. The Pullman Strike of 1984 was indeed a disaster for my great-great-grandfather. I believe he was crushed between two contending forces.

William John Clarke’s Tragic End

On By BrooksongIn Clarke, Family History2 Comments
College City residence of William John and Catherine (Foster) Clarke, built in 1879.
College City residence of William John and Catherine (Foster) Clarke, built in 1879.

My ancestors certainly experienced the death of loved ones far more frequently than we do today. Life expectancy was much lower in the 1800s. Diseases that were common in California’s Central Valley included malaria, typhoid and tuberculosis. Life on a ranch provided plenty of opportunities for accidents and injuries, and medical care was not always readily available.

In my post of October 1, 2015, I listed the seven children of William John Clarke and Catherine (Foster) Tenney Clarke. Although all of the Clarke children survived infancy, three eventually preceded their parents in death.

 

George W. David Clarke

The last child to be born was the first to die, and is therefore the one about whom the least is known. He didn’t have enough time on this earth to create much of a record. He was born May 10, 1879 and died of typhoid on February 16, 1887, three months shy of his eighth birthday.

 

William “Willie” Dougal Clarke

Three years after William John Clarke’s youngest son died, his eldest son died as a result of a hunting accident. Willie Clarke was born September 14, 1867. In the fall of 1888 he married Anna “Annie” Louisa Stover, age 22. Annie Stover was the daughter of Mary Ann (Rose) and Reuben H. Stover. The Stovers were well-known dairy and cattle ranchers in Big Meadows, Plumas County, CA. Don’t bother trying to find Big Meadows on a map now, as it is under Lake Almanor which was created by damming the North Fork of the Feather River in 1914. Back in the 1800s it was cattle country, and the Clarke family also ran cattle up there during the summer months. (I wrote about the Clarke-Stover connections and a bit about Plumas County in my post of June 4, 2015.)

In December of 1890 Willie and a young neighbor were returning from hunting when Willie’s loaded rifle fell through the slats of the wagon and discharged, hitting Willie who bled to death. Upon hearing the news of his death, Willie’s wife Annie gave premature birth to twins who died shortly thereafter and were buried under the rose arbor at William and Catherine Clarke’s College City home, compounding the tragedy of young Willie’s death.

 

Celia Violet Clarke

The third child to die was Celia, the second-to-youngest. She was born April 18, 1876, and died January 12, 1894, three months prior to her 18th birthday. She had been ill with consumption (tuberculosis) for a couple of years prior to her death, and died of that disease.

 

WJ Clarke’s Death

It is said that it was despondency over the deaths of his children, particularly Willie and Celia, that drove William John Clarke to commit suicide. On October 28, 1894, he shot himself on his son Willie’s grave in the College City cemetery. He was 74 years old.

I can’t help but wonder if there weren’t other factors weighing on Clarke. Many of his lands were mortgaged at the time of his death, and when everything was sold and debts were paid there was very little left. The History of Colusa County by Will S. Green, published in 1880, states that Clarke owned, besides his residence in College City, a farm of 640 acres in Colusa County, 2,063 acres of land in Yolo County, and a dairy ranch of 1,000 acres in Plumas County where the family spent their summers. There must have been some downturn of fortune in the fourteen years between the publication of that volume and Clarke’s death.

 

In any case, it was a sad end to a man who contributed much to the county of Colusa in its early days.

The Clarke Family Takes Root and Expands

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The next decade or so after their marriage in 1867 finds William and Catherine Clarke—or Will and Katie, as they were known—building their family, their farming and ranching enterprises, and their community involvement in Yolo County. At the time of their marriage, Catherine’s daughter from her previous marriage, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Tenney (my great-grandmother), was four. Two months after the wedding a son, William Dougal Clarke was born (recall that Lizzie as an adult wrote in a letter that she had learned that brother Willie was in fact her full brother, not her stepbrother as everyone had been led to believe, i.e. he was not the son of WJ Clarke but of Catherine’s first husband, Willard Tenney). Two years later a daughter, Margaret Jane, was born (1869). In 1871 another daughter, Catherine May, followed by a son, Noble Foster, in 1873. Two more children came along, Celia Violet in 1876 and George W. David in 1879. Twelve years after their marriage the Clarkes had seven children.

Although William and Catherine Clarke have plenty of descendants living today, these descendants all came from three of their seven children: My great grandmother Lizzie bore nine children, all of whom lived into adulthood; Margaret bore three sons, two of whom lived into adulthood; and Foster Noble produced a son and two daughters, all living into adulthood.

A tragic event occurred just five months prior to William’s marriage to Katie. William’s partner Jack Stewart was killed in a bar fight in the Knight’s Landing Union Hotel, stabbed to death by Charles A. Brown, who was convicted and sentenced to six years in state prison. Clarke subsequently bought out Stewart’s heirs—siblings still living in Scotland whom I’m sure had no use for wheat fields in California—for Stewart’s shares in the ranch. In 1870 the 60 acres that had been Stewart’s share were purchased by Katie (Foster) Clarke’s brother, James Washington Foster—the only one of her siblings to be born in the U.S. (Illinois) after her family emigrated from Ireland.

William and Katie Clarke each had siblings who settled nearby—remember that both the Clarkes and the Fosters immigrated initially from Ireland and came to California by way of Illinois, although I don’t yet know if the two families knew each other prior to their lives in California. Perhaps not, as a letter from one of William Clarke’s cousins who remained in Illinois asks William about his bride, “Where did you find her?”

One of the things I’ve found to be common in my own family history, and is probably common to many families in early California, is the intermarrying of families, i.e. two brothers from one family marrying sisters from another, or cousins marrying sisters, etc. This situation sometimes creates confusion, especially around names when the tendency for kids to be named after aunts, uncles and grandparents is added into the equation. Katie Clarke’s mother was Margaret, and she had a sister also named Margaret. William Clarke also has a sister Margaret, and he and Katie named their daughter Margaret. Katie’s brother James Foster married a woman named…wait for it…Margaret.

Noble Clarke, brother of William John Clark
Noble Clarke, brother of William John Clark

In any case, by the 1870s William had two siblings living in the Yolo/Colusa Counties area, his brother Noble and his sister Margaret. Katie Clarke also had two siblings in the area, her half-sister Elizabeth Little, who married William’s brother Noble, and her brother James Worthington Foster, a Civil War veteran who is shown to be living with Will and Katie Clarke in the 1870 census.

The pattern of my family’s immigration followed that of many other families: Siblings following siblings across the ocean and across the continent. By the 1870s both William and Katie have relatives who remained in Ireland as well as relatives who remained in Illinois—parents, siblings and cousins. Fortunately, some correspondence between the family groups has survived into the present day and sheds light on family events. Letters from a cousin of William’s inform him that his mother had died, and then his father. Letters from Katie’s half-sister Sarah in Illinois comment on the floods and loss of crops that the Clarkes endured over the years. In 1874 she writes,

“I do not see how you can live out there with so much water around you. I think it must be very unhealthy and then [to] lose so much wheat. I do not think that pays very well.”

In spite of Sarah’s misgivings about the area, it seemed to suit Will and Katie Clarke and they lived out their lives in Yolo and Colusa Counties.

The Miner-Turned-Farmer Takes a Wife

On By BrooksongIn Clarke, Family History2 Comments

I’ve gotten bogged down in telling William John Clarke’s story like a Conestoga wagon mired in the mud. I’ve got to move this thing forward because I have so many other tales to tell, including a recent family history road trip to Plumas County, California, where I learned so much more about the Clarke family’s interconnection with the Stovers, a pioneering family who ranched near what is now Chester beginning in 1859.

Truth be told, the next part of Clarke’s story is a bit of a mystery to me, one (or several) I’m dying to unravel.

The facts I know are that Clarke got married on July 5, 1867, at age 47 to Catherine Foster Tenney, age 25. It was his first marriage, her second. At this time Catherine had one child, aged 4, by her previous husband, Willard Tenney, and was seven months pregnant with a second child. The four-year-old was Elizabeth. “Lizzie”, as Screen Shot 2015-05-24 at 6.36.43 PMshe was called, was my Nana Marge’s mother, i.e. my great-grandmother. Here’s how the record of William and Catherine’s marriage license in Alameda County appears (see last line–and you can click on image to enlarge):

The boy who was born two months after Catherine’s marriage to Clarke was William Dougal Clarke, or “Willie” as he was known. He was always passed off as Clarke’s son. But I have evidence to the contrary in the form of a letter written in 1897 by Lizzie Tenney Clarke to a cousin on her mother’s side back in Illinois. This letter was written one month after her mother’s (Catherine Foster Tenney Clarke) death. The tone of this letter is distressed, and Lizzie voices longing for connection with her mother’s side of the family.

 My mother never even told me that Willie was my brother. He always felt nearer and dearer to me, than any of the rest, if I do say it my self…I never can forgive my mother for not telling me things she ought to have told me…

So, it certainly sounds like Willie—who died tragically in a hunting accident at age 23, a young married man with a pregnant wife, Anna Louisa Stover—was not Clarke’s son at all but was likely Willard Tenney’s progeny. From all accounts Clarke appeared to dote on “his” son, in any case.

Catherine Foster was born in Ireland, northern Ireland specifically, and not so far from where Clarke was born and raised.

Unsolved Mystery #1: Did their families have any connection back in Ireland?

By 1848 Catherine had emigrated to the US with her parents and siblings, as a brother was born in Illinois that year (Catherine’s mother was also married twice, once to Edward Little and then to James Foster, and had children with each). The 1850 census finds the family living in Rock Island County, Illinois, where Clarke also lived for 10 years prior to striking out for California. Given the difference in their ages Catherine would have been a child of 7 at the time he left Illinois for California at age 29, but I wonder if their families knew each other? I suspect they must have but I can only speculate at this point. One of Catherine’s half-sisters, Elizabeth Little, married William John Clarke’s brother, Noble Clarke, but so far I don’t have the date or location, only that they eventually lived in Yolo County near William and Catherine.

Unsolved Mystery #2: What, if any, was the connection between the Little/Fosters and the Clarkes in Rock Island County, Illinois?

Catherine’s first marriage occurred in Illinois on September 27, 1861 to Willard Tenney, whose family can be traced back to the Yorkshire district of England from whence they traveled to New England in 1638, to escape “religious persecution”. (They were apparently much aggrieved that King Charles had ordered that “no hindrance should be thrown in the way of those who wished to dance or shoot at the butts [a target] on Sunday afternoons.” Hmm.) By the 1800’s some of the Tenneys had ended up in Illinois via New Hampshire and earlier, Rowley, Massachusetts. Records indicate that Catherine and Willard and their infant daughter Lizzie came to California via wagon train in 1864. I hope to eventually discover which route they traveled and where they first settled. The next piece of information I have is documentation of Catherine’s marriage to Clarke in 1867. What happened during those three missing years? How did Catherine Foster Tenney and Clarke meet? Inquiring minds want to know.

Unsolved Mystery #3: What happened to Willard E. Tenney?

He just seems to disappear from all records. It seems clear from some of Lizzie’s letters to her cousin Eddie in Illinois that her mother was not widowed, but had left her father, whom she says she never remembers seeing (i.e. she was too young at the time of the divorce to retain any memory of him).

 Do you ever hear of any of my fathers people. Don’t you know, I just get to thinking of him. Sometimes knowing how terrible he felt, when mama left him for another. I don’t see how she could do it, for she told me he was just as good and kind to her as he could be. The other one [William John Clarke], was not, but it best not to talk of the past, when it is so unpleasant. But you have no idea how I feel when I think of poor old father. I never knew whether he died or was killed or what became of him. My how I would like to have had him with me in his old days.

Lizzie never knew what happened to her father, nor do we. I find this very puzzling in light of all the records that are available to us now. He does not show up in census information, no death certificate, nothing on Find A Grave (a wonderful website for finding where people are buried). I haven’t given up, however. Still searching.

Our story ends today with William John Clarke and his bride, Catherine (Foster) Tenney Clarke settled on their ranch in Yolo County where they proceed to produce five more children in addition to Lizzie and Willie.

William John Clarke
William John Clarke
Catherine Foster Tenney Clarke
Catherine Foster Tenney                         Clarke

May 1: Journeying West with William John Clarke

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The following is an excerpt of William John Clarke’s diary. This was day 36 of their journey, and they were traveling through Nebraska. They had left Council Bluffs, Iowa (at that time known as Kanesville) some ten days prior.

As usual rolled out and drove twenty-five miles of the most unpleasant road I ever saw. We had to wrap our handkerchiefs over our eyes. Johnathan Emes and me started on horseback after some antelopes at which time we lost our road and got into the sand mounds where we rode for six or seven hours without success. We first took a south west direction rode god knows how far and almost discouraged turned to the right and left but still our hope was blighted. After wandering about between hope and despair but still I did not like to give up the chase, rode up to the top of a sand hill and while there was as it were flung from one danger to another, for there I was surrounded by about eight or ten large wolves which seemed as though they would have liked to taste Irish blood. I was in a desert and depended altogether on my eyes and a rifle and only four bullets which I did not like to waste with wolves, as I had not yet got dinner and depended altogether on my eye and rifle which I knew if it ered it was the first time in my life. We at last took as it were, a north easterly direction which brought us to the Loup Fork of the Platt River which I knew as soon as I saw although it was twenty-five or thirty miles from our way which we left to our right and at four o’clock struck the road at which time our team was twenty miles ahead. We rode onto almost discouraged again. Johnathan was thoroughly fatigued and hungry, was for lying down on the road, but hope seemed to grow brighter with me for about six miles ahead I saw a light. I knew that in all it must be our camp. I encouraged Johnathan and whipped the horse until I arrived in camp.Our camp was all in consult what to do wheather to depart or go in search of us. Some of them was going to leave. One was James Gilmore of which I not expect it of his hand, but there are still some merciful men. Out of sixty-three men only three was willing to leave us. When we came to camp one of our men had killed a fine buffalo cow. Camped on Wood River. Made to on my race about eighty miles. Teams made about thirty four.

Taken on a road trip that took us through Nebraska in 2013.

William John Clarke’s Long Journey to California

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I knew that Clarke journeyed from Illinois to California in 1849 for the gold rush, but I hadn’t been aware that his journey originated in Ireland, where he was born and raised. His father, Dugald Clarke, was actually of Scottish descent. The English had actively encouraged the colonization of Ireland by giving land (after taking it from the Irish) to people who would settle in northern Ireland from the 1600’s onward. I look forward to learning more about the history of the Clarkes before they got to Ireland as currently I don’t know if it was Dugald Clarke himself who moved from Scotland to Ireland, or if that move happened in prior generations. What I do know is that Dugald Clarke and his wife Jane Tease (a native of Ireland) lived in Carricknamart in County Donegal, Ireland and had seven children. William was the third-born child, but the first of the siblings to leave Ireland, sailing for America in 1839, when he was 19 years old. He was not the last. Four of the seven Clarke siblings immigrated to the states and three of those ended up in California.

William originally landed in New Orleans in1839. Within six months he had moved up the Mississippi River to Illinois, where he lived for ten years, in Mercer and Rock Island Counties. While living in Illinois he worked as a cabinet maker, and became a naturalized citizen in 1848.

One thing I have learned in researching family history is that every fact or answer only serves to bring up more questions. I wonder why William entered the states via New Orleans rather than New York or some other common port of entry? And then, why Illinois? Perhaps he had family or friends already settled in those areas. Perhaps some day I’ll come across the answers.

Meanwhile, continuing with what we do know, in 1849 Clarke joined a wagon train with his friend, John Adams, and departed from Camden Mills, Rock Island County, Illinois. Destination: the California goldfields. They left on March 27 and arrived at Johnson’s Ranch on July 11, 1849. In between were many tedious miles as well as adventures. Here are some early excerpts from his journal:

April 3, 1849  Eight miles west of Iowa City:

Still in our camp and all well and in good as spirits as could be expected on account of the weather. They tell us here that there has been four hundred teams passed this place for California this sping. It began to rain yesterday about ten o’clock AM and continued on to rain to about ten today and I think it rather uncertain when we shall leave here except it changes fast and dries up we cannot.

April 13, 1849 Warren County, Iowa

The night being so cold we had to take turns about and get up to build fire as our blankets was on our horses. Left camp and resumed our journey at 9AM. Traveled nine miles and nooned. Roads generally good with the exception of one slough. After dinner and feeding our horses we started again. Had two miles of good road but after that the farmers changed their fence which caused us to pass through about fifteen or twenty sloughs of the worst kind. Our horses mired down and we had to unload and carry on our luggage about one hundred yards after which we fastened ropes to our hind axle tree and pulled it back. Traveled to Chapman’s Grove, there camped for the night. Had to carry our water about one-fourth of a mile, making today twenty-one miles. This grove is in Warren County, Iowa.

April 20, 1849 arrival at Council Bluffs, Iowa

This morning had breakfast at a earlier hour than common and rolled out for the bluffs. Traveled to Kanesville [as Council Bluffs was then known] and stopped for some time. Got six bushels of corn at $1.75 cents per bushel and also one hundred weight of bacon at eight dollars per hundred. Registered our name in the register office. Paid ten cents to register our name and had a paper sent to [undecipherable–looks like Arainfro]. After noon resumed our journey and came to the upper ferry on the Missouri River where we met G.B. Davis, J.M. Gilmore and Johnathan Emes. We camped to Monday [April 22].

April 22, 1849 Council Bluffs, Iowa

We formed a company of twenty-five wagons and drew up a constitution and by-laws for to act by when we resumed our journey. Appointed James M. Gilmore Captain, Wm. Clarke wagon master for our trip. At four o’clock PM traveled three-fourths of a mile and recamped for the night. Our ferriage was nine dollars and twenty-five cents and work our passage.

I will move on with Clarke’s story now, but intend to post other excerpts of his journal during the next couple of months on their corresponding dates.

According to his diary, he and Adams got to the “diggins” on July 18, and commenced gold mining on August 1, 1849. (“Hangtown”, now Placerville, CA, is where he arrived per his later application to the Society of California Pioneers.)

He was a miner for about six months and was apparently rather successful but he became ill from the poor diet of hard-tack and rusty pork, and left the mines, traveling to the burgeoning City of Sacramento, some 45 miles to the west, to recover. As it turned out, he did not return to mining but after recovering his health turned his hand to various enterprises, and made some astute business decisions along the way. I admire his flexibility and his ability to form a new plan when his current plan proved unworkable, a skill which requires the ability to see one’s life and events as they are, not as one wishes them to be.

Next time: William John Clarke takes on a business partner, engages in a variety of ventures, and lands in Yolo County.

Where to Begin?

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It’s difficult to know where to jump in to the family history, but as I intend to focus—at least initially—on the family of my maternal grandmother (Marjorie Cain Hoffman Meckfessel aka Nana Marge, 1904-1998), William John Clarke (1820-1894) seems a likely choice.

William John Clarke
William John Clarke

William John Clarke was my grandmother’s step-grandfather. He’s an ancestor I’ve been aware of for many years thanks to the fact that he kept a diary while journeying west by wagon train in 1849, and that the notebook somehow survived. The small, leather-bound journal was discovered in 1931 by a man who had purchased a ranch in Colusa County that had been owned by Maggie and Warfield Powers, Maggie (Margaret Jane Clarke, 1869-1930) being one of WJ Clarke’s daughters. When this man came across the journal in an old trunk, rotting in a barn on the property, he was kind enough to pass it on to a friend of the Clarke family. It was eventually given to my grandmother.

The original diary from 1849
The original diary from 1849
The original diary from 1849
The original diary from 1849

In the 1980’s the journal was borrowed by some of my mother’s cousins who were interested in family history. They copied it, typed it up, had it bound, and handed out copies to the family. I admit that after giving it a quick look and finding much of it rather dry reading, I let it sit on my bookshelf for many years before I read through the entire diary. When I finally sat down and read it, I found it fascinating, especially since it did not end with his arrival in California at the gold diggings, but had information about his activities after he arrived. I’ll be sharing a lot of information on his various adventures and undertakings, but meanwhile I’ll just say that he is a key ancestor who was attracted to the land in Yolo and Colusa Counties and was one of the early farmers in that area.

Reprinted version of the 1849 diary
Reprinted version of the 1849 diary

I have to stop and give a shout out to the industrious and talented women who in addition to making the journal available to us, also conducted extensive research on WJ Clarke, for which I’m very grateful, and they did it when family history sleuthing required much in the way of letter-writing and wearing down of shoe-leather, before the internet! I’m going to credit them right now as I certainly stand on their shoulders: Joyce Dawley and Marilyn Kelly Ornbaun, who are both great-granddaughters of Clarke.

Our ancestors’ stories are all the more fascinating when placed in the context of historical events. I find Clarke to be an interesting character as his personal history was influenced by events that occurred “across the pond” in Ireland and Scotland, while as an early comer to California he actively participated in the making of history including the gold rush, the building of the City of Sacramento, and influencing farming methods in the Central Valley. His story is anything but dull, from his early migrations, to the mysterious circumstances of his marriage to Catherine Foster Tenney (1842-1897), whose first daughter by a previous marriage, Elizabeth Tenney Clarke (1863-1933), was my grandmother’s mother—and whatever became of that first husband, anyway? Elizabeth, or Lizzie as she was called, laments the fact that she never knew what became of her real father in a letter she wrote to a cousin after her mother died in 1897. This letter also reveals some startling information about one of her siblings, Willie Clarke, information her mother had kept from her.