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. 

---

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^↩

A Great Find in Coombs, BC, Canada -- The Hardy - Spooner Family Album

 

My most recent antique shop find has been taking up a good portion of my free research time these days, which unfortunately, hasn't amounted to much lately as I work on my genealogical certificate courses and my own family history mysteries.  My newest treasure is an album of carte de visite and cabinet card photographs dating from roughly 1860 to the 1920s that I found at an antique shop in Coombs, BC, Canada.  Of the seventy photographs, less than a dozen are identified at all, and of that dozen only a handful have names, some with only given names.  Yet, I am happy to report that a history of the family who owned this album is slowly emerging.

Many of the early photographs were taken in London or Blandford, England; Belfast and Carlisle, Ireland, with more recent images originating from San Francisco, California.    Some of the surnames inscribed on the photos are Hardy, Spooner, Terrell, Humhal, Balean, and Baker.

My starting point for the search was a portrait of an infant with his unidentified grandmother.  I began there because I thought it best to work backwards in time.  The reverse reads, "Gerald Craig Hardy (3 1/2 months old) and his great grandmother (aged ninety years)."  The pair had their portrait taken at the Stanford Studio, 731 Market Street, San Francisco. Judging by the style of photograph, I would estimate that it dates to about 1900.

A search on Ancestry for "Gerald Craig Hardy" produced only one hit, and while there were a number of matches for "Gerald Hardy" the first seems to be the most probable.  The funeral home records for Gerald Craig Hardy, who was born 22 June 1900 in California to Lillian and Douglas Hardy¹ provided a wealth of information, including his State of California Death Certificate.  According to the certificate, Gerald died on the 30th August 1983 in San Francisco.  His father, Douglas Hardy, was originally from England and his wife Lillian, was a California native.  Gerald Craig Hardy was the owner and manager of "Hardy Theatres."  One of his "Hardy Theatres" still stands in Fresno, and it appears he operated in San Mateo as well.  Gerald grew up in San Rafael², and as an adult lived in Carmel-By-the-Sea³, Fresno⁴, and at the time of his death, in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco.  He and his wife, Vera Sellner, do not appear to have had any children.

The 1910 census shows that Gerald had one brother, Kenneth, born about 1903.

A little digging into Douglas Hardy's family reveals a connection to the Spooner family, which I will go into more fully in a future post.  Stay tuned!

---

1 California, San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1895-1985. Entry for Gerald Craig Hardy; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed Oct 9, 2013), citing San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1895-1985. Microfilm publication, 1129 rolls. Researchity. San Francisco, California.^↩
2 "United States Census, 1910," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MVL6-QSR : accessed 13 Oct 2013), Gerald Hardy in household of Douglas Hardy, San Rafael, Marin, California, United States; citing sheet , family 266, NARA microfilm publication T624, FHL microfilm 1374101.^↩
3 "United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XCDX-XR9 : accessed 13 Oct 2013), Gerald Hardy, Carmel by the Sea, Monterey, California, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 0021, sheet , family 152, NARA microfilm publication .^↩
4 1940 U.S. census, Fresno County, California, Fresno, Enumeration District 10-34A, sheet 63-B (penned), dwelling 326, Gerald C Hardy household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 Oct 2012), citing National Archives microfilm publication T627, roll 201 ^↩

Estelle (Etty) Harrington, San Francisco, CA, ca 1870

This is one of three cartes de visite from my collection relating to members of the Harrington family of San Francisco.  This one is identified on the back as "Etty Harrington."  I also have a second portrait cdv of "Etty" taken a couple of years later, in which she is identified as "Estelle Harrington," and a cdv of "Webber Harrington, 2 years old, Aug 25, 1874."

This image was taken at the studio of Wilbur Bayley and Robert Winter.  Their business was located at 618, and 620 Washington Street in San Francisco, next to Maguire's Opera House.  According to Pioneer Photographers of the Far West: A Biographical Dictionary, by Peter Palmquist and Thomas Kailborn, the partnership of Bayley and Winter lasted for only three years at this location, between 1869 and 1871.

Estelle, born about 1858 in California, was the daughter of Benjamin Webber Harrington and Sarah C.Harrington.  Estelle (or Etty) had two brothers, Frances B., born about 1842 in Massachusetts, and Frederick, born a year after Frances, also in Massachusetts.  Estelle's sister, Sarah M. was born in 1848¹.

Estelle's father worked as a stone cutter/mason.  In my hunt for information this family I happened upon the book Alcatraz Unchained by Jerry Lewis Champion, Jr. which is an in-depth history into Alcatraz Island.  According to Champion's research, Benjamin Webber Harrington moved his family from Massachusetts to the west coast during the time of the California Gold Rush, working as a stone mason at Fort Point and later, on the fortifications located on Alcatraz Island.  Later, his son Frederick worked as a lighthouse keeper  on the California coast, but mostly at the Trinidad Lighthouse, near the California/Oregon border.

In 1880, Estella seems to be going by the name Anita E. Harrington, and is working as an embroidress².  Her father, Benjamin is described as "paralyzed," in the census records.  He was 61 years old.  I wonder if he was a victim of an industrial accident.  Estelle (Anita)  Harrington's maternal grandmother, Sophia Pratt, age 78,  born Canada, is also living with the family in 1880 and is listed as paralyzed. 

I don't know what became of Anita Estelle after this.  She doesn't seem to appear in the censuses, which might mean she married and appears under a different surname.  I suspect there may be a lot of available material out there on this family, if one has the time to look for it.  If you know what happens to our subject after 1880, I'd love to hear from you.

****

UPDATE May 27, 2020: Recently I devoted a little more time to Anita Estelle Harrington to learn about her later years. I discovered a digitized copy of History of the Dore family written by Anita Estelle’s son, Walter Harrington Dore (https://archive.org/details/historyofdorefam1908dore.)  According to the author, Anita Estelle Harrington married Harry E. Dore in San Francisco in 1881. Walter was born in 1882 and the family lived in Portland, Oregon for 12 years where Harry Dore operated a printing business prior to moving back to California around 1896.  In 1920, Harry and Anita Estelle operated a grocery store in Berkeley, CA. The San Francisco Examiner reported Anita Estelle Harrington Dore died on the 23rd of October 1925 in Berkeley.

---

1 1860 U.S. census, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, population schedule, p. 410, dwelling 100, family 93, Estill Harrington, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 3 October 2012); citing National Archives microfilm publication M653, microfilm 803067.^↩
2 "United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M6PX-R35 : accessed 7 Oct 2012), Anita E. Harrington in household of Benjamin W. Harrington, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States; citing sheet 342B, family 2, NARA microfilm publication T9-0079.^↩