University of Virginia Library

WILLIAM CLARK

William Clark

SOLDIER—EXPLORER—STATESMAN

The first member of the Clark family to settle in Virginia was
one John Clark, of England, who settled in King and Queen
county in the year 1630. He married a Scottish lady from the
neighboring colony of Maryland by whom he had two sons—
John and Jonathan—supposed to have been twins. The latter
was married in 1725, to Elizabeth Wilson, of an English Quaker
family in King and Queen and to this union were born two sons
and two daughters, the oldest of whom was John 3d. In 1749,
John Clark 3d, married his cousin, Ann Rogers (who on her
mother's side was related to the Byrds, of Westover,) and settled
on "the western frontier" in what afterward became a part of Albemarle
county. Here were born the first four of their ten children—
Jonathan in 1750, George Rogers in 1752, Ann 1755 and [1] John
IV. in 1757. After seven years of residence on the frontier, John
Clark III., in herited the large estate of his uncle John II., situated

in the southwestern part of Caroline county and thus returned to
the old family seat, where the last six of the ten children were
born—Richard 1760, Edmund 1762, Lucy 1765, Elizabeth 1768,
William 1770 and Frances 1773.

William Clark, the ninth of the ten children, was born in
Caroline county August 1, 1770. At the time of his birth his
brother, George Rogers Clark, was twenty years of age, and a
surveyor west of the Alleghanies, in the Kentucky colony. Shortly
before William Clark reached his majority his parents and several
of his brothers and sisters left Caroline county for the newer
settlement of Kentucky and here on Bear Grass creek—three miles
from Louisville—the Clark family established a new home which
they called "Mulberry Hill."

The life at "Mulberry Hill" was similar to that in Caroline,
save that frontier conditions were more evident. The "old
Virginia hospitality" was transplanted to this new region and in
the hospitable Clark home the pioneers and immigrants of the
Kentucky movement were frequently entertained.

Soon after reaching the new colony William Clark enlisted
under his brother, George Rogers Clark, then General Clark,
in the Wabash Expedition and shortly afterward joined Colonel
John Hardin's unfortunate expedition against the Indians north
of the Ohio.

On reaching his majority, William Clark was commissioned
ensign and acting lieutenant and served with distinction in the
Wabash Indian campaign under Generals Scott and Wilkinson.
Of this particular incident in his career Dr. James O'Fallon, writing
under date of May 30, 1791, to General Jonathan Clark (William
Clark's oldest brother), says: "Your brother William is gone out
as a cadet with General Scott, on the expedition. He is a youth
of solid and promising parts and as brave as Caesar." This
reference to his bravery was, no doubt, based upon the very
dangerous missions to the Creeks and Cherokees, which had just
been executed by Clark for the Federal Government. This
mission to the Southern Indians was not more perilous than the
expedition up the Wabash late in 1793, during which he and his
comrades were for several weeks forced to depend solely upon
their rifles for food, while for three weeks of this period their
progress was blocked by ice, thus adding the terrors of cold to
the pangs of hunger.

In the spring following the perilous expedition up the Wabash,

Clark, who prior to the expedition had been commissioned first
lieutenant of riflemen in General Wayne's Western Army, was
ordered to escort seven hundred pack-horses laden with supplies
to Fort Greenville. During this expedition he gallantly repulsed
an attack of the Indians on the supply train, with the loss of only
six men killed and two wounded. During the same year he
commanded a company of riflemen in the battle of Fallen Timbers
and in this engagement won further distinction.

Clark's last service in the Western Army was as bearer of a
message from General Wayne to the Spanish authorities at New
Madrid, protesting against the erection of a fort at Chicasaw
Bluffs. The Spanish were much impressed by the dignity and
soldierly bearing of this young Virginian. On account of ill
health Clark resigned his commission on July 1, 1796, and retired
from the army with the brevet rank of captain. Immediately
after his retirement he assumed active charge of "Mulberry Hill,"
which on the death of his aged father passed into his possession.
To the management of the estate was soon added the tangled
affairs of his famous brother, George Rogers Clark—"the Hero
of Vincennes"—against whom numerous suits were being brought
for supplies furnished to his troops during the Revolutionary
War. To meet these claims, William Clark's loyalty to his brother
led him to part with the greater portion of his possessions, including
the family seat—"Mulberry Hill." In recognition of his brother's
self-sacrificing loyalty, General Clark conveyed to him sixty-five
thousand acres of land below the mouth of the Tennessee river,
and William Clark in later years, when this tract became valuable,
generously shared it with other members of his family.

On July 16, 1803, William Clark received a letter from his old
friend and comrade in arms in Wayne's Army, Captain Meriwether
Lewis, lately private secretary to President Jefferson, inviting him
to "participate in the fatigues, dangers and honors" of an exploring
expedition through Spanish territory to the Pacific ocean and
assuring him that "there is no man on earth with whom I should
feel equal pleasure in sharing them as with yourself." This letter,
after one month, reached Clark and was enthusiastically received,
Clark replying that, "This is an immense undertaking, freighted
with numerous difficulties, but, my friend, I can assure you that
no man lives with whom I would sooner undertake and share
the difficulties of such a trip than yourself."

Congress, agreeable to the wishes of Jefferson, who had long

dreamed of exploring the Far West, appropriated a sum of money
to carry the project into effect, and permits were obtained from
both French and Spanish officials who had but little knowledge of
what the expedition meant—the enterprise having been cloaked
as "a literary pursuit."

Clark enlisted a number of young Kentucky riflemen for the
expedition, and Lewis assembled boats and supplies at Pittsburg,
from which point he descended the Ohio river about mid-summer
with his little flotilla and joined Clark and his Kentuckians at
Louisville. The winter of 1803, was spent in camp near the
mouth of the Dubois river, opposite the entrance of the Missouri.

During this winter Lewis spent much time in the village of
St. Louis, consulting French fur traders and others conversant
with the new country, while Clark was occupied at camp preparing
suitable craft for the long journey, accumulating stores, and
organizing and disciplining the volunteers.

On May 14, 1804, Clark started from camp on the Dubois
and proceeded up the Missouri, picking up Lewis at St. Charles
six days later. The entire summer and fall were spent in the
tedious voyage up the Missouri and the winter of 1804 was
six days later. The entire summer and fall were spent in the
tedious voyage up the Missouri and the winter of 1804 was spent
in log-huts among the Mandan Indians not far from the place
where the city of Bismarck, North Dakota, now stands.

On April 7, 1805, the expedition left Fort Mandan for the head-spring
of the Jefferson fork of the Missouri, not far from the
Montana-Idaho line, arriving there August 12, 1805. The rugged,
snow clad Bitter Root mountains, which here constitute the
divide, were crossed, after which the expedition descended the
Columbia river, reaching the Pacific in November.

The winter of 1805, which was spent in Fort Clatsop on the
coast, was filled with distress, for, owing to the absence of trading
vessels on the Northwest coast at that season, the general letter
of credit given by Jefferson could not be presented for funds for
relief, and the explorers being in dire straits were reduced to the
necessity of making trinkets, practicing medicine and the like,
in order to obtain scant supplies from the avaricious natives.

The expedition left Fort Clatsop on March 23, 1806, but heavy
snows on the mountainous divide hindered their progress until
June and caused intense suffering. The explorers reached St.
Louis on September 23, 1806, after an absence of two years,

four months, and nine days, during which time they had made
one of the most romantic, exciting and significant chapters in
all history.

Soon after returning to St. Louis both Lewis and Clark were
called to high office—Lewis being made Governor of the territory
of Louisiana, and Clark the Superintendent of Indian Affairs
in the territory, and brigadier-general of the territorial militia.
Lewis is said to have been murdered at a tavern in Tennessee
where he was stopping en route to Washington and Philadelphia
for the purpose of arranging for the publication of the journals
of the great expedition.

Shortly after the death of Meriwether Lewis the name of the
Louisiana territory, or a part of it, was changed to Missouri, and
General Clark was appointed by President Madison as the first
Governor of the new territory, which office he ably administered
until 1821, when Missouri entered the Union as a State.

Upon the admission of Missouri to the Union, Clark became a
candidate for Governor of the new commonwealth, but was
defeated by his old Colonel, Alexander McNair. After his defeat
Clark was appointed by President Monroe to be Federal Superintendent
of Indian Affairs—an office newly created by Congress—
which office he filled continuously until the time of his death,
save a brief period in which he held the office of Surveyor
General of Illinois and Missouri and Arkansas.

As Federal Superintendent of Indian Affairs Clark exercised
sympathy and diplomacy and by his affable and conciliatory
manner inspired the confidence of many tribes by whom he was
affectionately known as "Red Head."

William Clark's private life was as upright as his public
life was prominent and around the St. Louis of other days clustered
many traditions of his stern integrity, his deep sympathy with
the unfortunate and his advocacy of the rights of the downtrodden.

On January 5, 1808, he was married to Miss Julia Hancock,
daughter of Colonel George Hancock, of Fincastle, Va., of whom
he had for some time been an ardent admirer and for whom
during the great expedition, he named one of the principal
tributaries of the Missouri—"Julia's River"—now called the
Big Horn. She died in June 1820, leaving him four sons and
one daughter and about two years afterward he was married to
the cousin of his first wife, Mrs. Harriett Kennerly Radford, who

bore him two sons. Three of his children, the daughter and two
of the sons, died while quite young and the others lived to mature
years and became the progenitors of many of the most prominent
families of Missouri, Kentucky, New York and elsewhere, while
from his brothers and sisters left behind in Virginia are sprung
the Clark families of Culpeper, Orange and other Virginia counties.

Clark was prominent in the commercial life of St. Louis and
was possessed of considerable means. The brick mansion which
he built on the corner of Main and Vine streets in 1818-19, was
one of the most imposing of early St. Louis residences. He was
also one of the founders of the Protestant Episcopal communion
west of the Mississippi, assisting liberally in the establishment
of Christ Church in St. Louis, the oldest Protestant Episcopal
Church in the West. In Christ Church Cathedral, an outgrowth
of that early church, there may be seen today a beautiful memorial
window on the left side of the chancel, placed there by his
daughter-in-law, in memory of his son and her husband, George
Rogers Hancock Clark.

Thomas Jefferson was greatly interested in the publication of
the Lewis and Clark journals and after the death of Lewis, induced
Clark to assume charge of the undertaking. Nicholas Biddle, of
Philadelphia, was engaged to edit the journals and prepare from
them a popular narrative. This publication appeared in 1814,
and has become an American and geographical classic. But it
was not sufficiently detailed from a scientific standpoint to satisfy
Mr. Jefferson, so he set about to collect the original note books
for the use of some future historian. Such as were collected were
placed in the care of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia;
but Clark, unknown to Jefferson, retained at St. Louis
the larger part of his own notes and maps. These original
journals and maps were removed to New York about one-half
century after Clark's death, and were discovered there, in the
possession of Clark's descendants, at the opening of the twentieth
century, by the eminent authority on western history, Reuben
Gold Thwaites, LL. D., from whose works the author has freely
drawn for the facts contained in this biography. Through the
labors of this eminent historian the "Original Journals of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition" with maps were published in full,
in seven volumes, one century after they were written and drawn
on the long trail.

On September 22, 1906, the one hundredth anniversary of

the return of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, there was unveiled
in St. Louis a bronze tablet to the memory of William Clark.
The tablet was a gift of the National Bank of Commerce in St.
Louis and was placed upon the Broadway front of the bank
building, which occupies the site of the dwelling of Meriwether
Lewis Clark, which house was the home of Governor Clark in
his later years.

The designing and erection of the tablet was done under the
direction of the Civic League of St. Louis, which inspired the
gift. The safe keeping of the tablet is committed to the Missouri
Historical Society. The inscripton on the tablet is as follows:

Here lived and died
William Clark
1770-1838
of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Soldier, Explorer, Territorial Governor,
Superintendent of Indian Affairs.

Erected September 23, 1906, The One Hundredth
Anniversary of The Return of The Expedition.

A tall monument in Indianapolis honors the memory of William
Clark and both he and his famous brother, George Rogers Clark,
have been honored with monuments in the city of Charlottesville,
Va.

General George Rogers Clark, known to history as "The
Hannibal of the West" and "The Hero of Vincennes" was the
most famous of all the distinguished sons of John and Ann Rogers
Clark, of Caroline county, and so occupies the foremost place in
history; but, rightly considered, William Clark was as great a
man as his more noted brother.

George Rogers Clark's conquest of the Illinois country, from
which was formed the States of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan
and Wisconsin, is easily one of the most splendid deeds of the
Revolution and indeed, one of the greatest achievements in all
the annals of time. And while it is frequently said that "comparisons
are odious," it must nevertheless be pointed out that
William Clark's last years closed in brightness and splendor,
while the closing years of George Rogers Clark were shadowed
with gloom. Excessive drinking weakened his last years and
poverty embittered them. The Legislature of Virginia voted him

a jeweled sword in recognition of his distinguished services to the
State and nation, but the token was not graciously received,
Clark complaining that the State for which he had cheerfully
drawn the sword, mocked him in his poverty by sending a jeweled
sword when he needed bread. His dust sleeps in an unmarked
grave in Louisville, Ky., the State of his adoption and the State
which would have given him the highest honors in its possession
had not the habits of his later years disqualified him for the
acceptance of them.

The Clark Arms are thus described: On a chev. betw. three
dragons' heads erased az.

Crest:

A dragon's head as in the Arms.

Motto:

Fortitudo.