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Guide to the Louise A. K. S. Clapp Collection, 1834-1849
151-153  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Administrative Information
  • Access Points
  • Contents
  • Biography
  • Correspondents
  • Material Transferred from the Collection

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Louise A. K. S. Clapp Collection,
    Date (inclusive): 1834-1849
    Box Number: 151-153
    Creator: Clapp, Louise A. K. S., 1819-1906
    Extent: 3 boxes
    Repository: California State Library
    Sacramento, California
    Language: English.

    Administrative Information

    Access

    Unrestricted.

    Conditions of Use

    Please credit California State Library.

    Publication Rights

    Copyright has not been assigned to California State Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing. Permission for publication is given on behalf of California State Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], Louise A. K. S. Clapp Collection, California State Library.

    Access Points

    Frontier and pioneer life--California.
    Clapp, Louise A. K. S., 1819-1906

    Contents

    Correspondence, lectures on art, and photographs.

    Biography

    Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clapp was born July 28, 1819, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Moses and Lois (lee) Smith who died in 1832 and 1837, respectively, leaving three boys and four girl orphans. After Mr. Smith's death, Osmyn Baker, an Amherst attorney, served as Louise's guardian until 1841. In 1838, Louise attended the "Female Seminary" in Charleston, Massachusetts. In 1839-40, she and her sister Mary Jane attended Amherst Academy. Louise was an active correspondent with friends and relations during this period. In 1839, she met Alexander Everett, an American diplomat, brother of Edmund Everett, while traveling in Vermont. They became friends and corresponded until 1847 when she met Fayette Clapp, a doctor, whom she married in 1848 or 1849. In 1849, she and her husband sailed to California. In 1851, they moved to Rich Bar, a mining camp on a fork of the Feather River and the setting for 23 letters to her sister Mary Jane under the pen name "Shirley". Around 1853, Fayette Clapp left his wife in San Francisco and returned east. They were divorced in 1857. Louise began teaching in San Francisco Public Schools in 1854 and retired in 1878. She also gave evening classes in art and literature during this period. In 1878, she returned east, dying in New Jersey on February 9, 1906.

    Correspondents

    Major Correspondents

    • Everett, Alexander Hill, 1790-1847.
    • Talbot, Emme C. F.

    Other Correspondents

    • Baker, Osmy
    • Breck, Eliza
    • Briggs, William N.
    • Delano, John A.
    • Estey, Elizabeth B.
    • "Everard"
    • Fisher, Marianne
    • Jenkins, A.
    • Knappe, C.L.
    • Lee, Gideon
    • Lee, Samuel B.
    • Meeker, Rebecca
    • Meeker, William Bloomfield
    • Montague, L. C.
    • Norton, Martha
    • Smith, Adeline
    • Smith, Charles H.
    • Smith, George
    • Smith, J. Lee
    • Smith, Mary J.
    • Smith, W. H.
    • Stuart, Charles
    • Stuart, Margarette
    • Stuart, Sarah B.
    • Ward, Lucy
    • Wilbur, Anna

    Material Transferred from the Collection

    • Photographs to photographers file and to picture file