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How do we know that Edwin W. Clarke
and Charlotte Ambler Clarkewere involved with the underground
railroad?
Edwin W. Clarke's work as an abolitionist was very public
and well-documented. Evidence for this family's support of the
underground railroad comes primarily from two sources:
1) the testimony of John Jackson Clarke, Edwin's nephew,
who recorded in 1931 stories he had heard from his own parents.
2) Edwin W. Clark's gravestone in Riverside Cemetery, Oswego.
His inscription reads:
Edwin W. Clarke and Charlotte Clark were almost certainly
key figures in the network of underground railroad supporters
in the City of Oswego. According to an account by Edwin's nephew,
John Jackson Clarke, Edwin W. Clarke worked in the city to make
arrangements for fugitives, while his brother and sister-in-law
(Sidney and Olive Jackson Clarke) offered shelter at their farm,
just east of Oswego. Edwin W. Clarke was born September 10, 1801,
son of Deodatus Clarke and Nancy Dunham Clarke. Deodatus was
a doctor, and the family moved from Pompey Hill and Manlius,
New York, to Oswego in 1807. They settled on a 250- acre farm
east of Oswego, just north of what is now Route 104, in a double
log house. There the Clarkes raised ten children, including Edwin
W. and Sidney, born December 20, 1803. Although the house burned
or was torn down in 1863, the Clarke family graveyard still stands,
surrounded by a stone wall.
Edwin W. Clarke became a lawyer in Oswego. In 1828, he also
became the first clerk of the Village of Oswego. His interests
were wide-ranging. He compiled a list of all the stone buildings
in Oswego in the late 1820s, for example. He also became an early
and vocal abolitionist. He was president of the Oswego County
Anti-Slavery Society in 1842, served for many years on various
anti-slavery committees, helped raise money for abolitionist
literature, and signed anti-slavery petitions. In 1840, he became
an ardent supporter of the Liberty party, an abolitionist third
party. He also worked hard in that year for the release of James
Seward, a free African American from Oswego County who had been
captured and enslaved in Louisiana. In a letter to the Oswego
Palladium, Clarke asserted that "the principles of slavery
and liberty are never dormant, never stand still. They are at
constant war, each striving for its own life, and conscious that
it can exist only by the annihilation of the other."
Charlotte Ambler Clarke was born August 16, 1809, and married
Edwin W. Clarke in 1833. She became a teacher and a homemaker.
By 1855, six children (five boys and a girl) still lived at home,
along with Harriet Scotte, a widowed dressmaker, and Margaret
Henderson, a sixteen-year-old Irish-born servant. For the first
25 years of their marriage, while Edwin owned some canal property
on the east side of Oswego, the Clarke family apparently rented
their homes. In 1852, they lived on West Sixth Street. In 1859,
however, they completed a fine new brick house on the southwest
corner of East Seventh and Mohawk Streets in Oswego. Clarke's
involvement with the underground railroad is documented best
in an account by his nephew, John Jackson Clarke, who heard these
stories from his mother, Olive Jackson Clarke, and from brief
conversations with his father, Sidney Clarke, before Sidney died
in 1860. According to John Jackson Clarke, "My father and
Uncle conducted the northern terminus of these clandestine operations."
They came first to Edwin and Charlotte's home in Oswego and then
"were hurried out to the farm and hidden in or about the
barns until an opportunity could be found for passing them on.
The great majority were sent across to Canada on sailing vessels,
but some few condtinued on to Sackett's Harbor or points
further north." John Jackson recalled hearing his father
say that he had helped 80 people go to Canada, but Olive Jackson
Clarke "was positive that the total number entertained at
the farm was over 125." Once, a man, woman, and their three
children were staying with the Clarkes when they received a message
from Edwin W. Clarke warning them that pursuers were close at
hand. The fugitives managed to hide in the woods before "a
southern emissary and a constable" searched the Clarke farm.
The famous rescue of Jerry McHenry in October 1851 involved both
Clarke families. "A trusty servant in uncle's employ"
brought Jerry McHenry to Sidney and Olive's farm, where they
hid Jerry for four days until they found a captain to carry him
across Lake Ontario. Charlotte Ambler Clarke died in the 1860s.
Edwin W. Clarke died in the 1880s.
- Primary Sources
- Assessment Records, City of Oswego. Search done by Justin
White.
Clarke, Edwin W. to Gerrit Smith, April 11, 1840, Smith Papers,
Syracuse University.
Clarke, Edwin W., Correspondence. Clarke Papers. New York State
Historical Association. Clarke, John Jackson, "Memories
of the Anti-Slavery Movement and the Underground
Railway." Typescript dated December 19, 1931. Clarke Papers.
Oswego County Historical Society.
Deodatus Clarke Genealogy. Clarke Papers, Oswego County Historical
Society.
Oswego City directories, 1852.
- Seondary Sources
- Breitbeck, Helen. "Edwin W. Clarke House." Architectural
survey form, Heritage Foundation of Oswego.
Paeno, John. "The Oswego Depot." Unpublished paper,
Special Collections, Penfield Library, SUNY, Oswego.
- Weinreb, Rachel. "Edwin W. Clarke." Unpublished
paper, Special Collections, Penfield Library, SUNY, Oswego.
Justin White did an assessment search for E.W. Clarke and
found none for this property. Only some east side canal front
property before 1859. City directory, 1852--lists Clarke as living
on West Sixth.
Clarke, E.W. and Charlotte
Wellman
10/98
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