JAMES-L Archives

From:
Subject: [JAMES-L] On Clark and James
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 14:20:27 EST

Re: Gen. Elijah Clark in Georgia
Posted by: Doug Tucker (ID *****7884) Date: December 11, 2002 at 12:00:54
In Reply to: Re: Gen. Elijah Clark in Georgia by Glynda of 19388


Glynda: The Elijah Clark (1774-1862) who married Elizabeth T. James and lived
in New Bern was the son of William Clark (c1739-1796) and Mary Willis who
married in New Bern in 1773. Although I cannot prove the relationship, William
appears to have been a younger brother of General Elijah Clark of Georgia. The
Ne Bern Elijah Clark was a long time Sheriff of New Bern. As far as I know,
Elijah and Elizabeth had a son named William Willis Clark who was born c1800 in
New Bern. I haven't tried to track down any other Clarks of this particular
line.

As for your question about the spelling of Clark, Gen. Elijah Clark was
poorly educated and had others do most of his heavy correspondence. However, the
few examples of Elijah's signature that have survived show that he spelled his
name without the "e". All of Elijah's children spelled their name Clark,
including oldest son John who served as Governor of Georgia. Yet government
administrators in Georgia, when it came to honoring Elijah Clark after his death,
chose to spell his last name Clarke -- thus there is a Clarke County in GA as well
as in many other southern states. I guess you can conclude that the spelling
of the name in the early years was up to the scribe and not the principal. It
has led to quite a bit of confusion among latter-day researchers.

I found the information here interesting On the CLARK,CLARKE surname.....
Mary Clark Alston Is in my line.
Thanks to Doug , Glynda


<A HREF=""> </A>

This thread:

• [JAMES-L] On Clark and James by