A notable family
The Clarks, a
large and now widely-ramified family group,
had long lived in Albermarle
County, Virginia, near the seat
of the Lewis family, and here were born
the two
oldest children of John Clark and his wife Ann
Rogers
—Jonathan (1750–1816) and George Rogers
(1752–1818). In
1754 John Clark removed to the neighborhood
of Charlottesville, Caroline County, where William,
their ninth child, was born August 1st, 1770. This branch of
the
family—preceded several years by George Rogers Clark,
who had
become famous because of his campaign against Kaskaskia
and Vincennes—moved to Kentucky
in 1784, their
estate being Mulberry Hill, on Beargrass Creek, near
Louisville.
The Clark home was the centre of hospitality and sociability
for
the region roundabout. It was frequented not only by sturdy
pioneers of the Kentucky movement, with their tales of Indian
warfare, and other perils and hardships of the early settlements;
but the second generation of Kentucky emigrants also found
here a
welcome—gentlemen and lawyers of the new settlements,
Revolutionary soldiers seeking
homes in the growing
West, men of enterprise, culture, and promise,
permanent
founders of a new civilization.
