"All-People" -- Section 2 {Table of Contents} Page 2- 1 DESCENDANCY of WILLIAM CLACK (c1628) and MARY [CLACK] William's parents were Richard Clack and (--?--) [Clack] Mary's parents and birthdate are not known to us Note 1: material in smaller type is written by Barbara Ann Fisher (BFE), wife of Karl Frederick Edler Jr (KFE), while larger type material is primarily from our family history database maintained by KFE. Note 2: names of direct ancestors of BFE are underlined. I. William 1 Clack 1 was born about 1628, probably in or near Marden, Wiltshire. He married Mary [Clack], probably about 1649 in Marden; at least four children. He died about 1682, age probably about 54. William Clack's father was Richard Clack (born about 1574), whose father was also Richard Clack. At this time we don't know anything else about the Clack family forebears. MARY [CLACK] -- We don't know who her parents were, or where she was born. After our April 2001 visit to Devizes, Wiltshire, and the nearby hamlets of Bradenstoke cum Clack and Marden, we feel strongly (without documented proof) that she was most likely from Marden. We feel that she and William lived either in Marden or between Marden and Devizes. They never came to America, although two of their four sons did. DEVISES, about 10 miles northwest of Stonehenge, is a marvelous place. It still has much of its medieval town center, with elaborate market cross, equally elaborate memorial fountain, ancient inns and other buildings. We were delighted to find such a great "ancestral town" and would have loved to stay longer! We have no evidence that William and his wife Mary ever lived there, but we believe that William surely went to the market there at least once. We liked the idea of being in a place where he had been. By the way, the letter "i" in Devizes is pronounced "eye". The Wiltshire Heritage Museum is in Devizes, with an extensive library and a wonderful historian, Lorna Haycock. She helped us with many references, and we bought a copy of one of her books. We looked in various reference books concerning the origin of the word Clack. Agreement was pretty general that it is probably derived from Cleg or Clegg, an ancient Celtic word meaning hill. "Devizes" is a corruption of the Latin "Castrum Ad Divises" or "Castle at the divisions" (or boundaries), the divisions being those of the three adjoining manors: Rowde, Cannings, and Potterne. The first castle in Devizes was built about 1080 by Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury. The present castle is Victorian, and was built as a residence on some of the earlier foundations. It's now an apartment complex and can't be visited. CLACK is a hamlet about 12 miles north of Devizes. It's not on most modern maps, but we found it easily after comparing old and new maps. The reason it's not well known is that for a long time it's been called Bradenstoke. The mail carrier told us its real name is Bradenstoke cum Clack, but they don't use the whole name, and that's fine with him! Some pictures of Clack and nearby areas are on page 25. Very small and charming, Clack is a great "ancestral hamlet" -- it's not on the way to anywhere, so it's likely to stay "unspoiled" at least a while longer. On maps of 200 years ago, it looks to have been comparable to the nearby village of Lyneham, still on modern maps and now much larger, with an RAF base. We can’t prove that William and Mary Clack ever lived in Clack, but we feel can't help feeling connected to the place in some way. The Bradenstoke name comes from the priory (or abbey, take your choice) on a present-day farm just beyond the town. The priory church apparently once served the nearby villages. St Mary's, the existing church in Bradenstoke/ Clack, dates only from 1866. THE PRIORY -- just a little bit remains, an archway and an ivy-covered tower containing a circular stairway (or garderobe, take your choice). It's on private property so can't be visited. The priory was sold in 1927 to William Randolph Hearst and transported away years ago. Some say it's still in crates in California, never having been reassembled. Others claim the stones were used in 1930 by Hearst to construct portions of his dream castle, St Donat's, in South Wales. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ PARTLY UNVERIFIED DATA FOR STUDY/REVIEW ONLY, PLEASE SEE {PREFACE} TO THIS DOCUMENT "All-People" -- Section 2 {Table of Contents} Page 2- 2 The crates in California probably contain material from Bradenstoke priory's "Great Tithe Barn", a magnificent structure itself. We asked if we could contribute to a fund to bring it back, but were told the owner doesn't want to sell. It is said that Hearst visited his Welsh castle only five times in the twelve years that St Donat's was his European home. Cash-strapped in 1938, he put it on the market where it languished many years. It now houses a college, a use that perhaps the founders of Bradenstoke might approve. CLACK HILL (or Clack's Mount, as some maps call it) is there but we couldn't walk to it because the paths and fields were closed due to the terrible foot and mouth disease epidemic. The postmaster, who has run a small general store for 30 years, said there's nothing particularly remarkable about Clack Hill, it's just one of the many "lumps" they have here and there in the area. It's a pretty nice looking lump, anyway. It's forested, and we could easily imagine how it might have been used in times long ago as a defensible place. A BOOK ABOUT CLACK -- we walked around in a small manufactured housing development on the edge of town, with a good view of Clack Hill, and talked with the manager, who was working on some repairs. He turned out to be one of the friendliest and most generous men we've ever met. He said he had a book about Clack and, since he had read it, he would give it to us. He knew it was in his file case but he couldn't find the keys, so he tried to reach his wife at work by phone. We agreed to come back after we walked around some more. The postmaster suggested we talk to the woman who lives across the street, Pamela Grigg, and we did. She was so gracious and invited us into her very old house. She's deeply interested in the history of the place. We bought a copy of the book she wrote and published privately several years ago -- "The Bradenstoke Heritage Collection; A Journey Through Time to Clack and Back, from Domesday to Millennium, with Monks and Memories". Among other things, she quotes a local entry in the Domesday Book which mentions that Godwin Clack "... a servant of the king" held land in Hilperton and Clyfe Pypard. Mrs Grigg is very interested in information about Bradenstoke/Clack and associations with the Clack family. She's now working on a sequel and welcomes input. Then we went back to the first man and he had found his book. The bad news was that his wife hadn't read it yet. But (and this is nearly unbelievable) he was going to let us take the book anyway, and have us send it back after we read it! He had an addressed envelope ready. Fortunately, the book turned out to be the same as the one we had just bought, so we didn't have to borrow his, but will never forget his kindness. MARDEN PARISH is where Rev James Clack Sr is said to have been baptized. The parish today isn't large enough to include Bradenstoke/Clack or even Devizes. (Actually, Devizes itself has had two large and very interesting churches, St John the Baptist and St Mary the Virgin, since the twelfth century.) We wondered if Marden Parish could have been larger in the mid-1600s. One reference in the Wiltshire Museum indicated that the church in Marden was associated with Bradenstoke Priory from 1267 until the dissolution in 1539. Vicars and curates of Marden in the mid-seventeenth century, William Clack's time, were apparently assigned by the Chapter of Bristol Cathedral. Several vicars and curates were mentioned in the article about Marden, but not the name Clack. Also, Marden Manor or Marden House, the local landed estate, is mentioned but had no Spencer or other relevant connections as far as we could see. MARDEN ITSELF is a hamlet (perhaps a dozen houses and a small church crowded in among them) about 5½ miles east of Devizes and about 15 miles southeast of Bradenstoke/Clack. There was room to park two cars by the side of the road, but the spaces were in use so we parked in the lot of a pub a little distance away. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ PARTLY UNVERIFIED DATA FOR STUDY/REVIEW ONLY, PLEASE SEE {PREFACE} TO THIS DOCUMENT "All-People" -- Section 2 {Table of Contents} Page 2- 3 The only way to reach the church itself was a narrow stone walkway between interesting thatch-roofed houses where one might have thought a larger churchyard would be. There weren't any familiar names on the tombstones. We wondered how it could have been that Rev James was baptized in Marden if his parents were from Clack.