The Clarke-Hazard family papers of Kingstown, Rhode Island: a family archive spanning 200 years, 1741 to 1951
270 pages of documents, correspondence, deeds, commissions, wills, and 540 photographs, 1880s to 1951. Also, 60 pages of printed matter and news clippings. Overall good to fine condition. Complete inventory is available on request. Impressive collection of colonial documents, deeds, commissions, wills, as well as a huge collection of photographs from an important early Washington County family--the Clarkes--and their relatives. The site of the family farm in South Kingstown was the locale of the Great Swamp Fight of 1675, an Indian battle of King Philip's War which wiped out all but about one hundred Narragansetts. Deeds are included for portions of this land as well as many other parcels of the family holdings. This collection also includes the genealogy of the family including a nine page typescript by an unidentified author, circa 1930. There are Clarke, Hazard, Hull, Brenton, and Lynch papers in this collection, representing intermarried families. Another highlight is Civil War letters written by a Rhode Island soldier who adopted an alias after deserting and joining a Missouri regiment! The collection also includes a dye log book from an early Rhode Island textile mill. The Clarke family was in Newport by 1638, and the earliest papers are from Gideon Clarke (1738-1817) who lived in South Kingstown. His son, John Gideon Clarke (1777-1868), married Almira D. Hull. Their daughter, Almira Hull, married Frank C. Lynch and one of their children was Frances Lynch, born 1903. Thomas B. Lynch was a sea captain. John G. and Almira's son, John Gideon Clarke (1824-1891), married Harriet Maria Hazard and lived in South Kingstown. The several John G. Clarkes were very active in town affairs and held many offices. John G. Clarke is mentioned in A History of Kingston, R.I. as being a vice president of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society. The Clarkes are also connected (probably through Jeremy Clarke of Newport) to the Brenton family who were among the original settlers of Newport in 1637. The Brentons were prominent and their descendants are related to both Governor Samuel Cranston and to Roger Williams. The Brenton family was Loyalist during the American Revolution, and some family members fled to England and Nova Scotia. Hazard relatives include Thomas Robinson Hazard (1797-1886), the second son of Rowland Hazard I (1763-1835), and Mary Peace Hazard. He was raised in South Kingstown as a Quaker, and spent three years in a Quaker school in Westtown, Pennsylvania, from 1808 to 1811. He began his adult life in the textile industry, first in his father's mill in South Kingstown, and then after 1821 on his own account. He also farmed and raised sheep, which earned him the nickname "Shepherd Tom". In 1838, he had amassed a sufficient fortune to enter a state of quasi-retirement at his estate in Portsmouth which he named "Vaucluse". In his later years, he was a frequently published author on topics as diverse as capital punishment, local history, African colonization, and sheep raising; he acted as a civic advocate for the poor and mentally ill. Among his books was a collection of political essays titled Facts for the Laboring Man by a Laboring Man (1840); A Family Medical Instructor: Civil and Religious Persecution in the State of New York (1876); and a collection of South Kingstown folklore entitled The Jonny-Cake Papers (1888, reprinted 1915). However, his primary interest was the Spiritualist movement. After the death of his wife, he wrote countless newspaper articles on spiritualism, and held frequent seances at Vaucluse. Hazard married Frances Minturn (1812-1854), daughter of Jonas Minturn of New York, in 1838. Item #58973
Price: $5,500.00
