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ALEXANDER CLARK, LOYALIST c:, i/i_. IC•l~ ✓ ., Ll,, .· J. _:h.l/ c,~ ~~ )Y~-·· \ PRINTED BY THB KENTVILLE PUBLJSHING COMPANY, LTD. KENTVILLE, N. S. ALEXANDER CLARK LOYALIST A Contribution to the History of New Brunswick 'By ESTHER CLARK WRIGHT B. A. (Acadia) Ph. D. (Radcliffe and Harvard) DEDICATION To His Honour the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick, who is proud to be a descendant of Alexander Clark, Loyalist. FOREWORD ~HE information for this study of Alexander Clark, Loyalist, -l9 has been gathered from many sources. Considerations of space forbid the citation of sources for each item of information, whether printed, manuscript, inscriptions on tombstones, or personal recollections. For' the New Jersey history, use was made of various his­ tories of the state, of the ArchiYes, published by the New Jersey His­ torical Solci.ety, and of other materials in the library of the Monmouth County Historical Association at Freehold. The Historical and Genea­ logical Miscellany: Data Relating to the Settlement and Settlers of New York and New Jersey, by John E. Stillwell, 1906, was particularly valuable. For the New Brunswirk history, and for the genealogical data, I am indebted largely to the kindness of nunwrous descendants of Alexander Clark, and their wives, who have answered my many queries and have shown me family records. I am particularly indebted to Mrs. Hedley V. Upton, without whose assistance this study would have been impossible; to Mrs. Simeon H. Jones, who very graciously let me use the vast amount of information gathered by her son and others; to Mr. Inglewood Flower, to Messrs. David and Chesley Clark for permission to copy from letters and other documents in their pos­ session; to Miss Barbara Clark, Mrs. C. A. Gilbert, Mrs. Wm. Rice, Mrs. Lewis F. Strout, and many others who have written at great length; to Mrs. Chas. W. Sprague for showing me the Family Bible of Alexander Clark, which she allowed me to deposit in the Provincial Museum of New Brunswick; to Miss Otty for allowing me to look at her copy of the Gagetown Church Records. In compiling the list of the descendants, I have preferred to group them by families, rather than by generations; e.g., the descendants of the oldest son, John, are taken up first, and of these, the family of his oldest son, Alexander, is listed, and the descendants of Alexander's oldest child given as completely as known before the second is taken up. The superior numbers refer to the generations, and can be used to compute relationship. Thus, George0 and William• would be fourth 1 cousins, if descended from different sons of Alexander ; if descended from John', they would be third cousins; if both descended from Wil­ liam", John', they would be second cousins. The abbreviations are ob­ vious, b. for born, m. for married, d. for died, dau. for daughter. Brackets around the last name of a wife indicate her surname by a former marriage. I am acutely conscious of the many gaps in the list of descendants, but I ho2e that sufficient additional information and corrections will. be sent me to make it imperative to publish at some future date a re­ vised and extended study. I shall be very glad to receive and note down all corrections and additions which are sent me. ESTHER CLARK WRIGHT. W olfville, Nbva Scotia, September 10, 1940. Alexander Clark's descent. William Clark m. Elizabeth d. 1709. I d. 1693 I William Alexander m. Sarah Van Horne Anne d. 1728 d. 1730 I I I I I I William Richard John m. Anna Dorn Benjamin Mary Elizabeth d. 1777 I d. 1801 I I I I Alexander m. Mary Hoff Cornelius John Nicholas Mary Leah d. 1825 d. 1836 I I I I I I Anne Abigail John William Gershom George ALEXANDER CLARK} LOYALIST "Alexander, son of John and Anna Clark was born September 20th in the Year of ouq Lord 1743." So runs the first item in the family Bible, purchased evidently after Alexander Oark and his fam­ ily came to New Brunswick with the Loyalists in 1783. The account of the family is probably written in his own hand, the meticulous hand which worked outJ the problems in arithmetic in a book in the Saint John Museum, "Alexander Clark, His Book, December ye 5, 1763." The statement in the Bible does not mention the place of his birth, which was the township of Freehold, in Monmouth County, New Jer­ sey, nor does it mention that he was the oldest son of John and Anna Clark. John Clark, yeoman and blacksmith, died March 17, 1777, aged 58 years, 16 days, and was buried in Topanemus burying ground, as his father and grandfather had been before him. His wife, Anna Dorn, daughter of Cornelius Dorn ( van Dorn, Dooren, Dorne, the name is variously spelt) of •Middletown, Monmouth Co., lived until 1801. Her will, which was drawn up in 1795, perhaps too soon after the Revolution, makes no mention of the eldest son, Alexander, nor of the second son, Cornelius, of whom no trace has been found, but leaves her property to John and Nicholas and the daughters, Mary and Leah, all four of whom had remained in New Jersey. There is evidence that she had not forgotten her oldest son, however, for one of his desc~n­ dants has a letter written September 22, 1800, the year before she died. Hoping these may find you and Afl the family and· Al the Children and their familyes in the same. I have sent several Let­ ters before the Re , this I have Not had a Letter in Upperds of two years Before this and the time seemed Long as I under a Decae of Old Age. My Brother Cornelius Dorn Lived with me this Several years and Dyed Last Marcp I wish I Cold See you Once More I Cold Give more Particular Accompts and 1I1Pre Satisfaction Than I Can By Righting I Desire to Be Remembered to All my Gran Children and family I remaind your Loving mother till Death (in different writing) Anna Clark John Clark in New Jersey had named his oldest son for his own father, and his second son for his wife's father, a custom which came with the family to New Brunswiq;:. John was the third son of Alex• ander and Sarah van Horn Clark. Alexander Clark died in 1730, at the age of 37, and left a small family, William, Richard, John, Ben­ jamin, Mary and Elizabeth, all under age at the time, so that his wife 7 Sarah, h~r brother Cornelius van Horn of Freehold, and William Laurence, Jr., of Middletown, were appointed executors. This Cor­ nelius van Horn ( e) was the founder of one branch of the van Horne family-there are at least three families of the name-and had mar­ ried, for his second wife, Elizabeth Laurenc,e. Alexander Clark's bro­ ther, William, who had died in 1728, had also married a Laurence. Alexander Clark's tombstone said that he died "with the cancer": the cause of his brother's early death is not given. They were the sons of William and Elizabeth Clark, whose names were recorded on a stone at the T opanemus burying ground. "William Clarke, of Kingdom of Scotland, died May 26, 1709, aged 63 years. Elizabeth, wife of Wm. Clarke, born in Scotland, died Dec. 25, 1697, aged 42 years." About the year 1684, the colony of East Jersey was made available for settlement through its purchase by a group of proprietors, of Scottish and Quaker connections, who set about making arrangements for dearing the land and establishing plantations. They brought out with them or sent out groups of servants to start on this task, and many thrifty Scots yeomen, and many Scots .who were victims of relig­ ious persecution, took advantage of the opportunity to get their pas­ sage paid and their living for the first few years assured, while they became accustomed to the country and looked for the landj on which they could expend their capital. William Clark and the neighbours who witnessed his will were among this group. William Clark him~ self seems to have come out with Robert Fullerton, brother of the Laird of Kennaber, in a ship that sailed from Montrose, with 130 souls on board, and reached Amboy some time in October, 1684. In 1691 William Clark began buying land. He bought 100 acres at Topanemus from Alexander Napier or Neper, referred to in his will as the plantation, called Huckleberry Swamp, bought of Alexander Neper. He bought also 486 acres in Wickatunk, the same district in Monmouth Co., land originally granted to Thomas Hart and sold by him to Richard Ashfield of New York, who sold it to William Oark in 1695. 32 acres of this property were sold to Thomas Lawrie in 1696, but the rest seems to have remained as part of William Clark's estate. He was one of a company, in which are included the neigh­ bours mentioned in his will, Alexander Napier, John Brown, John Hebron, Patrick Imlay, John Baird, William Laing, and other Scots who came out about 1684, who bought a site for a dock on Matawan Creek, adjoining land originally granted to Thomas Hart. One other bit of New Jersey history has bearing on the Clark family history. Mention has been made of the Topanemus burying ground whern the three generations who died in New Jersey were bur­ ied. The church at Topanemus had been founded as a Friends Meet­ ing by George Keith, a Scot intended for the Presbyterian ministry, 8 who turned Quaker about 1664 and was a dose associate of Robert Barclay and William Penn, two of the Jersey proprietors.

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