William Loring Clark's Grand House and Grounds in Dorchester, MA, 1867

I was in San Francisco last week, browsing bookstores and visiting the California Historical Society Library and Archives. This photograph was found in a box of ephemera at John Windle's Antiquarian Bookstore located on Geary Street. I was intrigued because I don't often find outdoor images from this time period. If the inscription on the back of the photograph is accurate, the picture dates to 1867, just two years after the end of the American Civil War. The woman standing on the front porch is wearing a dress very much in line with what I would expect from that time period. Rachel, the bookseller at John Windle, kindly gave me this photograph and I took it back home to Vancouver Island to see what I could do with it, in terms of identification.

On the reverse:

"Home of Wm Loring Clark Ashmont & Adams of Dorchester

taken spring of 1867

Mrs. Clark W.T.C. Ruth & Webster in carriage Annie Harmon standing

5 acres of grounds."

Sometimes an inscription such as this can be read a number of ways, especially when punctuation is absent. At first glance it looked as if the homeowner's name might be William Loring Clark Ashmont. But that didn't seem right. I thought a good starting point would be to figure out which Dorchester we were dealing with. I learned that Ashmont & Adams are intersecting streets in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and so that is where I began the search.

In 1865, William L. Clark, a thirty-eight year old auditor with the Rutland Railroad, lived in Boston with his wife, Ann and three children: William T., 14; Ruth M., 4; and one-month-old Webster¹. This seemed like a close match with the individuals mentioned on the back of the photograph, but I was a little concerned that this family resided in Boston's Ward 11 rather than Dorchester, a community  located just outside of Boston. A check of the Dorchester City Directory for 1868 shows that Wm. L. Clark, a merchant, had a house on Adams near Ashmont in Dorchester, in addition to a location in Boston, at 105 Summer Street². 

Information about the family after 1870 was difficult to locate. I was able to trace the children, as grown-ups, living in the San Francisco area, but I was unsuccessful locating them in the 1880 US Federal Census. I learned why after finding two death notices for W. L. Clark, one in the Boston Herald on December 25, 1887, which was published about eight months after his death. News must have travelled slowly from San Francisco to Boston in the 1880s. A more timely notice appeared in the San Diego Union³:

San Diego Union, 20 April 1886

The family appears to have moved from Massachusetts to Japan for a period of twelve years, resettling in the Bay area on their return to the United States around 1883. This explains how the image ended up in San Francisco.

As of yet, I haven't figured out how Annie Harmon connects up with this family. 

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1 "Massachusetts State Census, 1865", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MQCP-C94 : 1 June 2018), William L Clark, 1865.^↩
2 "U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995", indexed database and digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 Aug 2018), page 46, Wm. L. Clark entry; citing "Dorchester, Massachusetts, City Directory, 1868 (Boston, Ill.:n.p., 1968)." ^↩
3 San Diego Union (San Diego, CA) 20 April 1886, page 3 GenealogyBank https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2%3A136E6A0F0DF56B38%40GB3NEWS-13ECFCA5670509CD%402410017-13ECEEA4B9D4EBC4%402-13ECEEA4B9D4EBC4%40 : accessed 10 August 2018^↩

Two CDVs from Philly

Civil war-era cartes de visites are fairly easy to date.  They are usually printed on very thin card stock and the portraits are often in head-shot, vignette style, with quite a bit of white space left around the subject.  The 1860's photographer's imprint is more subdued than in later years and seldom cover the entire back of the photograph.  Of course, a date cinches it, which is the case with the first of today's found photos.

Mrs. E. L. CLARK was photographed in October of 1863 at H. Manger's Photograph Gallery, on Chestnut Street in Philadelpha. It also has the mysterious phrase, "rats & mice" scribbled on the back of the photo.

Update:  the notation "rats & mice" may refer to Mrs. Clark's hairstyle.  Margaret Mitchell offers up a description of a hairstyle called "Cats, Rats, and Mice":  "The hair was parted in the middle and arranged in three rolls of graduating size on each side of the head, the largest, nearest the part, being the 'cat.'" (Gone with the Wind, Chapter XIII)

Our second photo, taken at Groom's Carte de Visite and Photograph Gallery, on Second Street, Philadelphia doesn't include a date, but provides this inscription, "Master D. F. DICKSON.  Sab. School Scholar. 1st R. P. Ch, Pa."

Both hairstyles in these photos hint at a 1860s time frame, as does Mrs. Clark's subtly pink-tinted cheeks. As you can see, there's always a few clues hiding in cartes de visites.