Manuscripts
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
