Compiled
by Teresa Martin Klaiber March 2023
Mitchell
Clark was born in Virginia 7 May 1819.
There has been much speculation[i]
but no documentation as to parentage of Mitchell Clark.
The
first record this compiler can find for him is in the Carter County, Kentucky
Personal Property tax for 1842[ii]. This is the same year that Samuel Ferguson
Clark of Cabell County, Virginia, having either moved or going to move to
Missouri, sold fifty acres of land on Bolts Fork, Lawrence County, Kentucky, to
James Prichard.[iii] James Prichard’s son William would later
marry Mary Jane the daughter of Mitchell and Sarah R. Stanley Clark.[iv]
The
land Samuel F. Clark sold was described as adjoining Elijah Rice, very near the
newly formed Carter County line (formed 1839).
Elijah Rice[v] was a brother of Barbara Ellen Rice that
married Andrew Jackson Stanley [vi]
brother to Sarah Stanley who married Mitchel Clark circa 1840/41. No record of
an official marriage has been located at this writing by this compiler.
Both
Mitchell Clark and Joseph Miles Clark (born about 1821 in Virginia) appear side
by side on the 1843 and 1844 tax lists of Carter County, Kentucky with no land
values.
By
1846 the Carter County tax list places Mitchell Clark as being on Garner with
150 acres valued at 100. Just north west of Bolts Fork there is a dividing
ridge between Jacks Fork and Garner. The 1850 Federal Census show the Clark family with children James, William R. Clark, Mary
Jane and John Taylor Clark and shortly after the census was taken Bryant Smith
Clark was born.
In
October 1853 James Calvin Clark died and was buried in Selbee-Clark Cemetery on
Garner (now Long Branch Road, off Rt. 854). This cemetery lays about 600 feet
from the then site of Greenhill Lodge and very close to Banfield Cemetery. Selbee-Clark at one time had an iron fence.
When the KHS cemetery project was done the people merged Selbee-Clark with the
Banfield cemetery because they were so close together. The Banfield and Selbee-Clark cemetery is
approximately 1 ½ miles from Klaiber Cemetery on the opposite side of the road.
Researchers
have been quick to jump on the band wagon and claim another James Clark as the
son of Mitchell Clark(e) simply because of his death in in Carter County[vii]. They did not follow the subtle
documentation. James was marked as an
idiot in the 1850 Federal Census, a designation given a person that mental
facilities are arrested in infancy or childhood. They did not research the
locality and entries of cemetery records in the area of Garner within Boyd
County. They did not note that in 1900
when the census taker asked how many children Sarah has the response was nine
with six still living. (Hannah, James
and William were all deceased before 1900).
Sarah
was pregnant at the time of James Calvin Clark’s death. Hannah Clark was born
to Mitchell and Sarah 14 May 1854 on Garner according to her recorded birth
record.
In
January 1855 Allen Prichard made a motion in the Carter County Court that
Mitchell Clark was to oversee a road leading from the East Fork to Sulphur on Williams Creek commencing at Bryan(t) Fannin’s
house leading to the Sulphur Spring calling all hands living on Garner above
Fannin’s and all hands residing on Rush Creek and to keep the same in good
repair, digging 12 feet when digging is necessary and the cut to be 20 feet.[viii] Today this is Route #854.
August
27th, 1855 little Hannah Clark died on Garner from fits. She was buried in Selbee-Clark cemetery, next
to her brother James Calvin Clark on what is now Long Branch Road. The stone gives a different date of death by
about two weeks compared to the recorded county death record.
In
December, that year, the Carter Court ordered William P. Hood, Chrisley
Banfield and Mitchell Clark to review a change of the road leading over A. (Allan)
Prichard’s and Jno. Banfield’s. But
almost immediately, at the next session, the court ordered that Powell Sexton
replace Mitchell.[ix] This
compiler speculates that with strain of the death James, and Hannah, in
probability Clark might have asked to be relieved from duty.
George
Washington Clark was born to the Clark’s on 10 July 1857. When he was a toddler
Charles E. Hood and Amanda his wife sold land on the upper edge of Clark’s farm
on the dividing ridge between Jacks Fork and Bolts Fork for $543.00, dated 1
December 1859 to Mitchell and Sarah Clark.[x]
[xi] The acreage is not cited in the deed and the
deed was not filed in Carter County until 6 April 1875. That section became Boyd County in 1860.
There is indication in Carter County, Kentucky court records that there was an
issue with some land transactions Charles E. Hood had been involved with as a
constable and thus the purchase was not filed until they were ready to sell.
In
turn, on the same day, 1 December 1859, Mitchell Clark took out a mortgage
receiving $100.00 from Allan Prichard putting up what he then describes as 181
acres “where he now lives.” C. E. Hood did
sign as a witness but Soloman Davis filed the deed of mortgage with the clerk
the same day.[xii] Thus
this document (unlike the previous) is in sequence within the deed books of
Carter County, Kentucky.
Both
the earlier tax records and the Hood deed indicate that Mitchell was already
paying on some property prior to the 1859 purchase. There is the possibility he
took on the responsibility of the tax prior to having it documented. To date
this compiler has not been able to confirm any further land holdings.
Births
and weddings are always a happy time. Joseph Mitchell Clark was born to the
Clark’s 24 July 1860. Weddings were usually small neighborhood affairs. Daughter
Mary Jane married William Prichard 14 August 1861 at the Mitchell Clark house. Mitchell
Clark was a witness for the marriage of Jasper Breeding to Elmira R. Fannin,
daughter of Bryant and Mary Smith Fannin 20 August 1868.[xiii]
Sarah
Ellen Clark was born to Mitchell and Sarah in 1863. When she was six, Mitchell Clark along with
William P. Hood, C. P. Banfield, Riley Sexton, Lindsey Fannin, Philip Howe and
others agreed to pay James W. Mullan to teach at the Greenhill School House in the
neighborhood (part of the Greenhill Lodge) 12 December 1869[xiv]. Subscription school teachers were taken care
of by donations, lodging and food of people of the area. Two of Mitchell and
Sarah’s children, Joseph Mitchell Clark and Sarah Ellen Clark, would benefit
from this education. The subscription
teacher, James W. Mullan would go on to marry 16 March 1871 Louvernia Prichard
the daughter of William Allen Prichard.
By
1870 there are five children living at home with Mitchell and Sarah. Mary Jane
now married to William Pritchard lived nearby. John Taylor Clark is now 21 and brother Bryant
Smith Clark 19 and able to help with farming and labor as needed. Even George at thirteen is able to do labor
while Joseph and Sarah are marked simply as “at home.”
Sarah
and Mitchell Clark sold John N. French[xv]
the 181 acres on Jacks Fork…on the high knob between Bolts Fork and Garner 2
February 1875. James W. Mullan was by
then acting as clerk of Boyd County and signs the deed. Both Sarah and Mitchell
sign by mark.[xvi]
Mitchell
is sixty-two by the time of the 1880 Federal Census and still indicated he was
farming. But he no longer is paying real
estate tax. Joseph Mitchell Clark and Sarah Ellen are still living at
home. Sarah would marry Van Buren Goins
in 1882[xvii]. Joseph Mitchell Clark would marry Elizabeth
Bays.
Mitchell
Clark died at the age of 73 years 4 months and 7 days on 14 September 1892 and
buried in Klaiber Cemetery which is on the ridge of Garner, Boyd County,
Kentucky. According to some descendants,
at one time an iron fence enclosed the Clark family graves. There has been no sign of a fence in over 50
years in Klaiber Cemetery. The fence is
described much like the remains of the fence in Selbee-Clark that could be seen
when visited by this compiler.
A
photograph of Sarah and Mitchell Clark has circulated from time to time on the
internet. At one time it was submitted
to the Carter County
genealogy, history and research web site by Gary Kutcher (click to link). Wayne Clark
of Olive Hill, Kentucky shared a grainy copy of Sarah and Mitchell for the cemetery
record books.
Whispers
from the Grave Series of this blog will continue the Clark family in the next
post.
[i] He
might be a relative of Joseph Miles Clark who m. Mary Thomas in 1840 Carter
County with son Stephen buried in Banfield aka Selbee/Clark Cemetery which lays
on the same road (Long Branch Road in 2023 on Garner).
[ii]
Fhl 008337274
[iii]
Law KY deed book C page 251
[iv]
Boyd KY m 14 Aug 1861
[v]
Married Eliza Jane McCormack
[vi] M
11 Jul 1848, Carter KY
[vii] That
James Clark’s CW record & subsequent records show he was born in Mercer Co
KY , m in Owen Co.
[viii]
Fhl 008686579 Carter KY Court Orders
[ix]
Fhl 008696579Order bk 2 p 108
[x]
Carter KY deed book G p 1982
[xi]
Charles E Hood son of William and Matilda Howe Hood who are also in Klaiber
Cemetery. As a constable he signed several deeds that ended up in court cases
and by 1875 was not paying his own property tax on Jacks Fork.
[xii]
Carter County deed book 8 page 184
[xiii]
Boyd KY M
[xiv]
Klaiber, Teresa; Boyd County Kentucky
Genealogy, Stories, Articles & Research: Monographs II p 78
[xv]
John N. French’s son James W. would marry Oct 1874 Hannah Stanley niece of
Mitchell Clark’s wife Sarah.
[xvi]
Ky Boyd deed book 7 p 206
[xvii]
Boyd KY M record 31 Aug 1882
