The Filson Historical Society Blog

Canine historian and genealogist, Dr. Bill researches his ancestry. President Thos. Jefferson once praised Bill's German Shepherd predecessors for their high intelligence, ease in training, and pleasant companionship.

Even though Spring has just begun, it almost feels like the dog days of summer in the Louisville area.  Maybe the weather is bringing canine researchers to the Filson in packs, or perhaps it’s our extensive resources on the canine history of the Ohio River Valley.

This Sunday, April 1, the Filson had the pleasure of assisting a distinguished researcher: Bill Poindexter.

Image credit: Laurence Pringle, 2004.

Dr. Bill Poindexter – who prefers to be called ‘Bill,’ ‘Billy Boy,’ or ‘Bilbo’ – is Chair of the history department at the University of Man’s Best Friend.  Though Bill has published numerous scholarly articles regarding Seaman, the Newfoundland, explorer, and goodwill ambassador who participated in the Lewis & Clark Expedition, this Filson visit was strictly for genealogical research.

Historic sheet music from the Filson archive about Bill’s canine kin "composed and sung with enthusiastic applause"

Bill found a plethora of information at the Filson that he used in his research including the 1890 Canine Census, the Encyclopedia of Kentucky Pups, the Mutt family letters, and plenty of dog-eared rare books that convey how his ancestors lived and work in 19^th-century Kentucky.  Much to his surprise, Bill uncovered a long lost family connection to the canine companions of our 3^rdPresident Thomas Jefferson. Bill was pleased with the information gleaned from the Filson’s research collections and stated that he would bark the message out to his canine cousins and colleagues that the Filson Historical Society is the premier facility for all historical canine information.

Happy April Fool’s from the Filson Historical Society!  Please note: no animals were hurt in the production of this blog post.

Jonathan Clark, of the famous Clark family, passed away on November 25, 1811 – 200 years ago this month. Born in August 1750 in Albemarle County, Virginia, Clark was the oldest of the ten children of John and Ann Rogers Clark. Two of his younger brothers – George Rogers and William – achieved great fame; George for his exploits in Kentucky and the Northwest Territory during the Revolutionary War and William as co-leader of the epic 1803 to 1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition across the American West to the Pacific Ocean.

George Rogers Clark, portrait by Matthew Jouett, ca. 1825. No portrait for brother Jonathan is known to exist.

William Clark, portrait by Joseph H. Bush, ca. 1817

Jonathan was a source of solid support and advice to both George and William as to his other siblings. He also achieved success and was widely admired in his own right. Jonathan served as a representative to two Virginia Revolutionary conventions and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Eighth Virginia Regiment in the Continental Line during the American Revolution. He served with distinction in a number of campaigns and battles. He was one of the original Virginia members of the Society of the Cincinnati and in 1793 was commissioned a major general in the Virginia militia. Thus he, like George and William, also achieved the rank of general (all in militia service).

Jonathan moved with his family from Spotsylvania County, Va., to Jefferson County, Ky., in the summer of 1802, settling on a plantation on the South Fork of Beargrass Creek near his brother William’s Mulberry Hill plantation (and where the Clarks had settled in 1785). His house was located off of Dundee Road near Atherton High School and still stands (though greatly altered over the years).

Jonathan and Sarah Clark's Louisville home, located off of Dundee Road, photo by Jim Holmberg.

Jonathan moved at a fortuitous time, as great things were happening in the west beyond the Appalachians. Brother William set off on his “western tour” to the Pacific in the fall of 1803. Jonathan and other Clarks were there to see him depart. Big brother even sailed downriver a ways with the captains and the nucleus of the Corps of Discovery.

Jonathan Clark's diary entry for 26 October 1803.

William wrote letters to him during the expedition and sent reports, notes, and artifacts collected along the trail to him for safe-keeping and dispersal to family and friends.  When the captains returned to the Falls of the Ohio in early November 1806,  Jonathan noted it in his diary; as he did a celebration at sister Lucy Croghan’s home Locust Grove in honor of their return. As short as these diary entries are, at least they record these momentous events in the life of the family, our region, and the country.

Jonathan Clark's diary entry for 5 November 1806.

Engraving of the Falls of the Ohio, by Victor Collot.

Not long before his death, Jonathan recorded yet another event that proved to have great regional and national  importance. He took a ride on the first steamboat to travel on western waters. The New Orleans  left Pittsburgh in October 1811 and eventually reached New Orleans in January 1812.  While waiting at Louisville for the Ohio to rise sufficiently to pass through the Falls, Nicholas Roosevelt (the boat’s designer and one of its owners) gave rides upstream to demonstrate the paddlewheeler’s ability to travel against the current.  On November 9, Jonathan was one of the passengers to take a ride and see for himself what this feat of engineering foretold for river travel and the development of the country.  It is one of the few references by someone about, much less who rode on, the boat. One wishes he had described the boat and his excursion, but at least we have this: “Sailed in the Steam Vessle New Orleans - as far as the Diamond Island.” (Although uncertain, best evidence indicates that Diamond Island is present Twelve Mile Island.)

Diary entry noting ride on the steamboat "New Orleans", 9 November 1811.

Sixteen days later Jonathan Clark passed away. Thanks to his diary-keeping, as brief as his entries are, Jonathan recorded the momentous as well as the mundane over the course of more than forty years, and provided an important record of American history.

“A Day in the Life” is a phrase we’re all familiar with. Whether it’s in the context of the famous Beatles song, the photojournalism project that documented life in a particular continent, country or city during one day, or the classic Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (not quite a match but too good not to reference), the phrase “a day in the life” can tell us much about an individual, a community, a people, a country, and more. To learn about them and what happened on that “day” in that “life,” we depend on the letters, diaries, photos, newspapers, and other sources that chronicle them. Without them our historical memory, our heritage, would be largely blank.

Meriwether Lewis by Charles Willson Peale, 1807. Courtesy Independence National Historical Park.

Using “A Day in the Life” as the premise for this inaugural Filson blog series, dated diary entries, letters, photographs, and other material will be featured that offer a view to the life of an individual, a community, a state, a country, or the world on a particular date. Newspaper features such as “Looking Back” or “On This Date” list events that occurred on a particular date. “A Day in the Life” might do that also, but the reader will get them in the words of the people recording the events, as well as their feelings and other information; and in the case of photos, a scene or event frozen in time.  It is particularly appropriate to initiate this occasional feature in October – American Archives Month. The written and visual records preserved in archives are absolutely essential in documenting our past.

Jonathan Clark's diary entry written on October 26th 1803 noting the departure of the Lewis & Clark expedition from the Falls of the Ohio.

William Clark by Charles Willson Peale, 1807. Courtesy Independence National Historical Park.

October 26, 1803, is the 207^th anniversary of Lewis and Clark and the nucleus of the Corps of Discovery setting off from the Falls of the Ohio on their three year journey across the American West to the Pacific Ocean. This “Day in the Life” was significant not only for the participants and their families but ultimately for the nation. Described as the most famous exploring venture in the history of the United States, the Lewis and Clark Expedition succeeded in its mission (for more information go to www.lewisandclarkinkentucky.org and www.lewisandclark.org as well as other websites and sources). What the future held no one really knew that day. Only a couple of known sources provide information. One of them is the diary of Jonathan Clark.  The oldest of the ten Clark siblings, Jonathan kept a diary for forty-one years, perhaps because he was a man of few words – weather and where he slept that night are constants; but if something of particular note occurred Jonathan recorded it – and on October 26, 1803, he wrote:

“Rain at Louisville at Clarksville. Capt. Lewis and Capt. Wm. Clark set of[f] on a western tour. went in their boat to Mr. Temples  lay Do.”

That day was quite “a day in the life” of the Clarks, Lewis, the members of the expedition, and the country.

This begins a new feature of The Filson’s Blog. Historical images of buildings or a location from our collection will be juxtaposed with images from that same site today. The site and view might have changed little or it might be entirely different, with a new building, parking lot, etc. now there. Some of the changes might be for the better and in the name of progress; and sometimes the change will be a real loss to our architectural and historical heritage. But either way, the viewer will be able to step back in time and see what the site looked like THEN and what it looks like NOW.

THEN: Mulberry Hill - The Clark Family Home as it appeared ca. 1890

Our first “Then and Now” pairing is related to the founder of Louisville, George Rogers Clark. The famous “Hannibal of the West” founded Louisville in 1778 while on his way farther west to attack British posts in the Illinois Country. Clark made Louisville his home for most of the rest of his life. He believed so strongly in Kentucky being that “Eden of the West” that he persuaded his parents, John and Ann Clark, to move to Louisville from Caroline County, Virginia. With them came their three unmarried daughters (Lucy, Elizabeth, and Fanny) and youngest son William. They settled on a tract of land that George most likely selected for them on the south fork of Beargrass Creek. John Clark christened the estate Mulberry Hill. The nucleus of the Clark plantation was the house, of course. The property, although whittled down through the years) stayed in the Clark family until it was sold to the federal government in 1917 as part of the land acquired for Camp Zachary Taylor. The house iteself had collapsed through neglect about 1900, but the outbuildings were still intact. In order to make way for the camp, all the surviving buildings were razed (the fate of many structures on property acquired for the camp). When the camp was closed and sold at auction in 1921 Clark family members purchased forty-six acres containing the family cemetery and where the house had stood. That tract was donated to the city of Louisville for a park to be named in honor of Louisville’s founder. Today, George Rogers Clark Park is a popular destination located on Poplar Level Road. The playground equipment is located where the house once stood.

NOW: Playground equipment stands where the Clark cabin once did.

Only the family cemetery (many of the bodies were transferred to Cave Hill Cemetery in 1868) remains today to remind us where Louisville’s founder and one of our most famous pioneer families (William Clark and his enslaved African American York who lived for many years at Mulberry Hill would go on to fame on the Lewis & Clark Expedition) once lived.

For more information go to the Lewis and Clark in Kentucky website and Dr. Ernie Ellison’s pamphlet on Mulberry Hill on the Louisville Metro Parks website.