Lincoln Clark Papers: Finding Aid mssCL
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Finding aid last updated on June 23, 2022 by Melissa Haley.
Contributing Institution:
The Huntington Library
Title: Lincoln Clark papers
Creator:
Clark, Lincoln, 1800-1886
Identifier/Call Number: mssCL
Physical Description:
10.88 Linear Feet
(9 boxes )
Date (inclusive): 1758-1942
Date (bulk): 1850-1860
Abstract: This collection contains the letters of American lawyer and politician Lincoln Clark (1800-1886), his wife, Julia Annah Clark,
and their family, with the bulk of the collection consisting of Clark's letters to his wife. There is also material related
to Julia Clark's relatives in the the Smith and Williams families. Subject matter includes: New England religious principles
over multiple generations; life in Massachusetts (1758-1836), Alabama (1837-1847), Iowa (1848-1851), Washington, D.C. (1852-1853),
and Illinois; the financial depression of the late 1850s; Julia Clark's work with the United States Sanitary Commission (1864-1865).
Language of Material: English.
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[Identification of item]. Lincoln Clark papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Julia Lincoln Ray Andrews, granddaughter of Lincoln and Julia Clark, and the family, 1943-1952.
Lincoln Clark (1800-1886), a lawyer and Democratic legislator, was born in Conway, Franklin County, Massachusetts, the son
of Elisha Clark (who had traced his ancestry to the Mayflower) and Lucinda Keith. Clark studied with Rev. Moses Hallock of
Plainfield, Massachusetts, and then attended the Hopkins Academy in Hadley. In 1820, he taught school at Plainfield and Patterson.
He graduated from Amherst College in 1825, and soon left for North Carolina where he studied law with Nathaniel Boyden and
worked as a teacher. In 1831, Clark moved to Alabama; he soon was admitted to the state bar and settled a law practice in
Pickensville. In 1834, he was elected to the state legislature and served one term. In June 1836, while visiting New England,
Lincoln Clark met Julia Annah Smith (born 1812), daughter of Erastus Smith, a successful merchant and selectman of Hadley,
Mass., and Sarah Chester Williams. The couple was married in September 1836 in New York and immediately left for Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, where Clark had established a busy law practice in partnership with E. Woolsey Peck. In 1839, the state legislature
elected him attorney general, and in 1846 the governor appointed him a circuit judge. The Clarks started contemplating moving
north in 1843 not wishing "to die and leave our children in a slaveholding country." Although he disapproved of slavery, he
thought that only "the silent workings of the religion of Christ" could put an end to it. He sympathized with the "Southern
people" who, he felt, were too victimized by slavery "fastened upon them." In 1846, Clark made his decision to move to Iowa
rather than Illinois, which he disliked as a seat of "bigoted, fanatical abolition." His wife and children left in the fall
for Massachusetts in 1846; Clark remained in Alabama to close his law practice and dispose of his property which included
family slaves whom he decided to hire out "until they earn nearly what they cost me and then set them free." He moved to Dubuque,
Iowa in 1848, and his family joined him. Clark established a successful practice and served as the president and a director
of the Dubuque and Western Railroad. In 1851, he was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-second Congress; his reelection bids
in 1852 and 1853 were unsuccessful. In 1857, Clark was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives. He supported Stephen
A. Douglas in the 1860 presidential election, but during the Civil War, sided with War Democrats. In 1862, the family moved
to Chicago where Clark resumed the practice of law. In 1866, he was appointed United States register in bankruptcy. He retired
in 1869, following an attack of typhoid fever and returned to Conway, Mass. In 1837, Clark who had come from a Congregationalist
family joined the Presbyterian church. He was soon ordained an elder and later was a member of the General Assembly of Presbyterian
Church. Clark also was an early trustee of Northwestern (McCormick) Theological Seminary in Chicago.
Clark's wife Julia Annah Smith (born 1812) hailed from an old New England family. Her grandfather was William Williams (1734-1808),
son of Col. Israel Williams (1709-1788), and her grandmother, Dorothy Ashley Williams (1763-1833), daughter Rev. Jonathan
Ashley. Julia Clark was a well-educated woman of broad interest. During the Civil War, she and her daughters worked in the
United States Sanitary Commission. In the 1870s and 1880, she wrote on science, religion, and social reform contributing various,
mostly Presbyterian, magazines and journals.
The Clarks had four children who survived to maturity: Catharine Lincoln Clark (1838-1897); Julia Annah (1840-1913), Lincoln
Ellis Clark (b. 1843), and Edward Fessenden Clark (b. 1845). In the 1860s, Catherine Lincoln Clark worked with her mother
for the Sanitary Commission, and later was a teacher to freedmen in Northern Alabama. In 1864, Julia Annah Clark was married
to Charles Henry Ray (1821-1870). Between 1878 and 1881, she served as the Lady Principal of Vassar.
This collection contains the letters of Lincoln Clark, his wife, Julia Annah Clark, and their family, with the bulk of the
collection consisting of Clark's letters to his wife. The correspondence was accumulated by Mrs. Clark and her side of the
family the Smith and Williams families. Also included is a genealogical chart and a family history written in 1942 by Julia
Lincoln Ray Andrews.
Other correspondents besides family members include Rev. Joseph Howe (1747-1775); John H. Tice, a meteorologist from St. Louis
(Mo.) Jane Currie Blaikie Hoge, Howard Crosby, William Anderson Scott, Alexander T. McGill, Le Roy Clark Cooley, Maria Mitchell,
Harry Norman Gardiner, James Dwight Dana. Daniel Warren Poor, George Washington Cable, Mary Watson Whitney, Jonathan Baldwin
Turner, Meta Lander (Margaret Oliver Woods Lawrence), Washington Gladden, Rutherford B. Hayes, Cordelia Agnes Greene, Charles
Henry Oliphant, William E. Gladstone, Catherine Mary Phillimore, and others.
Persons represented by five or more pieces:
- Mary Ann (Ball) Bickerdyke, 5 pieces
- Catharine Lincoln Clark, 31 pieces
- Julia Annah (Smith) Clark, 47 pieces
- Lincoln Clark, 368 pieces
- Isabel A. Pratt, 10 pieces
- Sarah C. (Smith) Robinson, 5 pieces
- Pandius Theodore Ralli, 9 pieces
- Erastus Smith, 10 pieces
- Sarah C. (Williams) Smith, 19 pieces
- William Williams, 9 pieces
Lincoln Clarks' letters are written during his many absences riding the circuit in Alabama between 1837 and 1847; trips back
east; their two-year separation between 1846 and 1848; his stay in Washington, D.C., in 1852-1853; and his business travels
in the 1850s and 1860s. The letters discuss Lincoln Clark's professional and political career; Mrs. Clark's work at home and
involvement in charities, their religious feelings, their children's upbringing and education, the fate of their slaves; financial
troubles, especially in the wake of the 1857 panic, the Civil War, the U. S. Sanitary Commission, etc. Also included are five
letters written between 1854 and 1861 by Frederick Clark and his wife Charlotte, Lincoln Clark's former slaves who immigrated
to Liberia in 1856.
Also included is correspondence of Julia Clark's parents and grandparents, her sisters Dorothy Williams Smith Holbrook,
Rachel Bardwell Smith Holbrook, and Catharine Amelia Smith Jones, a cousin Caroline W. Porter, and her daughters. William
Williams's letter written in 1758 to his then sweetheart Dorothy Ashley discusses the proper relationship of faith and reason;
a long letter of February 1, 1800, describes, in great detail, the passage by the Massachusetts legislature of the Act Providing
for Public Worship of God, which Williams had sponsored. The 1816 letter from a cousin, Sarah T. Williams Newton, wife of
Edward Augustus Newton (1785-1862), from Calcutta discusses Christian missionaries in India and Indian society. The letters
from Julia Annah Clark Ray describe her studies at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. The letter from Alfred
Wright (July 4, 1825) discusses his work as a missionary to the Choctaw Nation. The correspondence of Caroline W. Porter includes
letters from her friends and admirers, including Thomas R. Ingalls (1798-1864), the future president of Jefferson College
and then (in 1816-1818), a West Point cadet, and Pandias Theodore Ralli (1819-1882) who later became a director of the firm
Ralli Bros.
Some notable items include:
- Clark, Lincoln. To Mrs. Clark: a gossipy letter from Washington, D. C. "I dined at Col. King's [William Rufus King] on Friday... it was a real state dinner - no ladies - I was never behind the curtain where great men relaxed before..." Jan. 26, 1852
- Clark, Lincoln. To Mrs. Clark: "Iowa is not worth bargaining with, if she could be bargained with, because her political strength is so small..." Washington, June 6, 1852
- Clark, Lincoln. To Mrs. Clark, regarding a visit to James Buchanan at Wheatland. Philadelphia, Feb. 10, 1857.
- Correspondence of Mrs. Lincoln Clark and her daughter Catharine, having to do with their war service on the U. S. Sanitary Commission, 1864-1865
This finding aid was updated in 2022 by Melissa Haley as part of the American Presidential Papers Project with enhanced description
of the presidential material present.
Individual call numbers included in the collection: mssCL 1-702.
- Lincoln Clark Papers addenda, 1837-1853 (Call number: mssCL 696-702)
Arranged in chronological order.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
African Americans -- Colonization -- Liberia -- Personal narratives
Child rearing -- United States -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Church and state -- Massachusetts -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Congregationalists -- New England -- Correspondence.
Depressions -- 1857 -- United States
Freedmen -- Alabama -- Correspondence.
Freedmen -- Liberia -- Correspondence.
Lawyers -- Alabama -- Correspondence.
Lawyers -- Illinois -- Correspondence.
Lawyers -- Iowa -- Correspondence.
Legislators -- Massachusetts -- Correspondence.
Legislators -- Iowa -- Correspondence.
Legislators -- United States -- Correspondence.
Politicians -- United States -- Correspondence.
Presbyterians -- United States -- Correspondence.
Slavery -- Alabama -- History -- Sources
Slaves -- Alabama.
Women -- New England -- Correspondence.
Women -- United States -- Correspondence.
Women -- Religious life -- History -- Sources
Women authors, American -- Correspondence.
Women scientists -- United States -- Correspondence.
Women social reformers -- United States -- Correspondence
Alabama -- History -- 1819-1950 -- Sources
Kolkata (India) -- Description and travel
Illinois -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Iowa -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Liberia -- History -- 1847-1944 -- Sources
Massachusetts -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
New England -- History -- 18th century -- Sources
United States -- Church history -- Sources
New England -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Sources
United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Sources
Family papers -- United States
Genealogies -- United States
Letters (correspondence) -- Alabama -- 19th century
Letters (correspondence) -- New England -- 18th century
Letters (correspondence) -- United States -- 19th century
Love letters -- New England
Personal papers -- United States -- 19th century
Clark, Lincoln, 1800-1886 -- Archives
Cable, George Washington, 1844-1925
Clark, Charlotte, active 1854-1861
Clark, Frederick, active 1854-1861
Clark, Julia Annah Smith, 1812-
Cooley, Le Roy C. (Le Roy Clark), 1833-1916
Crosby, Howard, 1826-1891
Dana, James Dwight, 1813-1895
Gardiner, H. Norman (Harry Norman), 1855-1927
Gladden, Washington, 1836-1918
Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart), 1809-1898
Greene, Cordelia Agnes, 1831-1905
Hayes, Rutherford B., 1822-1893
Hoge, Mrs. (Jane Currie Blaikie), 1811-1890
Holbrook, Dorothy Smith
Howe, Joseph, 1747-1775
Ingalls, Thomas R., 1798-1864
Lander, Meta, 1813-1901
Livermore, Mary A. (Mary Ashton), 1820-1905
McGill, Alexander T. (Alexander Taggart), 1807-1889
Mitchell, Maria, 1818-1889
Oliphant, Charles H. (Charles Henry), 1825-1902
Ralli, Pandias Theodore, 1819-1882
Phillimore, Catherine Mary
Poor, D. W. (Daniel Warren), 1818-1897
Porter, Caroline W. (Caroline Williams)
Ray, Julia Annah Clark, 1840-1913
Scott, W. A. (William Anderson), 1813-1885
Smith, Sarah Chester Williams, 1778-1845
Tice, John H.
Turner, J. B. (Jonathan Baldwin), 1805-1899
Whitney, Mary Watson, 1847-1921
Williams, Dorothy Ashley
Williams, Israel, 1709-1788
Williams, William, 1734-1808
Democratic Party (U.S.) -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Hopkins Academy (Hadley, Mass.)
Miss Porter's School (Farmington, Conn.) -- History -- Sources
United States. Congress (32nd : 1851-1853). House
United States Military Academy -- Cadet life, 1802-1845 -- Sources
United States Sanitary Commission -- History -- Sources
Box 1
1758-1836: Massachusetts
Box 2
1837-1844: Alabama
Box 3
1845-1847: Alabama
Box 4
1848-1851: Iowa
Box 5
1852-1853: Washington, D.C.
Box 6
1854-1858
Box 7
1859-1861
Box 8
1862-1876: U.S. Sanitary Commission
Box 9
1879-1892; Ephemera; Fragments; American Scene manuscript
Correspondence includes Rutherford B. Hayes, Fremont, Ohio, autograph letter signed to Julia Annah Clark, 1890 February 24
(CL 645, 1 page). Other material includes a typescript manuscript of
American Scene, by Julia Ray Andrews (1942 September); a photostat copy of a family tree of the Williams family; 22 pieces of fragments and
ephemera including a newspaper obituary of Lincoln Clark; 12 cards and notes with names and addresses of persons met in the
Army; and a pamphlet:
No. 1. Talks With A Child. For Mothers Only. The Body and How to Protect It by M. A. L.