John Y. Clark Papers
This directory contains transcriptions of letters to and from John Yardley Clark, from
about 1834 to about 1841. Much of this correspondence is between John Y.
Clark in Paris and his brother James G. Clark, who was still living in the
Philadelphia area. The original letters were transcribed by Mrs. Margaret
Lewis Irwin, and are being posted publicly here for anyone interested in
this bit of history. If you would like to know anything else about these
documents, please contact Greg Hammett, hammett@princeton.edu.
John Yardley Clark was born in New Jersey on March 3, 1797. He graduated
with a degree in Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania. On December
19, 1820, he was married to Ann Eveline Fries, daughter of John Fries. She
was born Aug. 20, 1796 and died July 18, 1826. They had two children,
Evalina, born Sept. 12, 1822 - she died at birth, and John F. Clark, born
June 12, 1825 - died June 10, 1835.
John Y. Clark was married for a second time on June 29, 1829, to Henrietta
(sometimes known as Harriet) Girard L'Allemande. She was a niece of
Stephen Girard and the widow of General L'Allemande. She had a child,
Caroline, by her first husband. Caroline married into French nobility.
John and Henrietta had three children - Roma, b.? d. 1832, Henry, dob
unknown and Florence (Flory) dob unknown - d. 1930.
After living in Paris for many years - on the rue de Rivoli - John Clark
returned to America in failing health around 1853 and died in Philadelphia
on May 29, 1863. Harriet Girard-Clark died in 1880 and her
obiturary
was published in the New York Times on July 29, 1880.
More information can be found by searching for "John Y. Clark" at
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, which has the James G. Clark
Papers, 1839-1866, which apparently are also referred to as the John Y. Clark Papers,
because they are primarily letters from John Y. Clark to James
G. Clark. (Presumably the letters at The Historical Society and here on this web site are different.)
Presuming there aren't multiple people named John Yardley Clark in this
time period in Paris or the Philadelphia area, there are a number of additional
interesting facts one can learn about him on the internet. He received his
M.D. from the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1818.
His notes on medical
lectures by Dr. John Syng Dorsey in 1816-1817 are in the archives of The College of Physicians
of Philadelphia.
He was a member of
The Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia, and in 1824 was a founding secretary of The Pennsylvania
Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvements in the
Commonwealth.
"The History of the Pennsylvania Hospital, 1751-1895" (p. 337) records
that he donated a Piano Forte for the use of the Insane Patients. According to
History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, by J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson
Westcott (p.926), he lived in the John Dunlap House (at left, as shown in the book)
from 1825-1828.
This and additional info can be found by Googling
"John
Y. Clark" Paris
or "John
Y. Clark" Philadelphia. (Google has scanned a lot of interesting old books.)
To Do: I should add more information about the family tree. One relative
(grandfather?) was John Fries, who was involved in the Whiskey Rebellion.
One of John Clark's descendants was a math professor at Oxford, and other
interesting ones as well.