Constellation Similarity Assertions

According to the author who published many of Clarke's letters, "Frank and Mary Clarke were among the tens of thousands of European immigrants who flocked to the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century to look for a better life." Charles Francis Clark, of Suffolk, England, immigrated to the United States in 1847, driven by wanderlust. As Darlis Miller explains, "Clarke abandoned England at a time when Europe was being inundated with promotional literature that touted western America as a land of golden opportunity where the industrious were assured prosperity." He settled in Wisconsin, first, but his life and businesses took him to various parts of the country (including New Mexico, Utah, Missouri, and Kansas), prior to his death in Tennessee while taking part in a Union campaign in the Civil War in 1862. During his lifetime, Clarke worked as a clerk at Jefferson Barracks, a fur trader, as an enlisted army man with the first regiment of U.S. Dragoons at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, as a civilian clerk in the Quartermaster's department, and as Assistant Adjutant General to Brigadier general James W. Denver. He married Mary McGowan, Irish immigrant, who was later faced with the task of solely supporting a family of five sons. She did so by resorting to means common to women at the time, such as renting out property and taking in boarders as well as by operating a ferry. Mary died in 1900 at age 70.

From the guide to the Charles Francis Clarke Papers, 1847-1914 (bulk 1848-1971), (University of New Mexico. Center for Southwest Research.)

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