Anne M. Tria

Intern Midterm Report: Summer 1997

Project MSA ECP/51 TRIA

Mission Statement

As a continuation of my research project on the construction of the State House Dome and Lightning Rod, this summer I am attempting to produce an indepth study of its architect, Joseph Clark. During the past school year I uncovered many details of Joseph Clark's public career focusing primarily on his business affiliations with Robert Morris. John Nicholson, and James Greenleaf in Washington D.C. This summer I hope to place his experience as a contractual architect and builder within the context of Clark's larger public role as ardent federalist, deputy grandmaster of the Freemasons, architect of numerous Maryland public works, and later as an insolvent petitioner in Baltimore attempting to reclaim his due from Luther Martin and the State of Maryland. While attempting to do this, I often found that Clark's private life played a pivotal role in his career and vice versa. As a result, I also spent much of the first half of this summer on geneaolgical pursuits of Clark's wife, daughter, and brother. The results,in my opinion, reveal not simply a brief glimpse into the world of Joseph Clark but also offer the researcher a broader understanding of the country's early economic practices (speculation) , problems with building a new government ( both literally and figuratively), and relationships between male and female, "European" and "African" Americans during the nation's infancy. I see this last statement as my overarching goal for an endproduct this summer.

Query Results

With Rocky, Mr. Barnes, and Dr. Papenfuse's guidance, in the past five weeks I uncovered many new details about the lives of Stephen Clark, Isabella Clark Beale, Mary S. Magee, and Joseph Clark. First, I relocated Stephen Clark's whereabouts in Baltimore City and traced his business and location through the Baltimore City Directories. Beginning in 1812, Stephen Clark appears in the Baltimore City Directories as a stationer and lottery agent. By the time of his death in 1825, the directory lists several store locations on Baltimore and Calvert Sts. A man by the name of John Clark takes over these locations until approximately 1860. Stephen Clark apparently admires his brother's wife, for he names a daughter after Isabella. The daughter dies in Baltimore City at the age of 19. Although I have not been able to discover probate materials for Stephen, records of St. Paul's Episcopal Church list his buriel date as July 25, 1825. The Baltimore City Directories also proved helpful for trackign down Isabella Clark Beale after her first husband's death. She moves to Petticoat Lane in Fell's Point. By checking with the 1798 City Tax Assessment, I discovered she occupied a home owned by a Captain Beall. This man is probably her second husband, Thomas Keibard Beale whose name appears in various spellings. Unfortunately a search for Captain Thomas Beall's has not lead to any more information on her second husband. All I currently know is that he married Isabella in Sept 1799 , he owned several properties in Baltimore City, took over the adminisration of Joseph Clark's estate, and that he relocated the family to Washington D.C. in 1801. A careful rereading of Isabella's letter to MNG reveals her pride of her Scottish heritage, a strong faith in her husband's honesty and integrity, anger over the destitution produced at the hands of Clark's derangement and MNG unscrupulous business practices, a brief description of her former life, and a necessity to care for her seven children both white and colored. Isabella was the sixth daughter of Alexander (tailor and property owner in London Town and Annapolis) and Elizabeth Ferguson. She supposedly dies in 1804, according to chancery records. I am currently aware of four offspring of Joseph and Isabella Clark: Horatio (the eldest son who died at the age of 14 in September 1793), George (who dies sometime before Fall of 1795 as indicated in St. John's College matriculation Record 5), Jane Clark (who I believe might have had an illigitmate daughter [see St. Paul's Parish Records on Sarah Anderson Warfiield daughter of Dr. Warfield and Jane Clarke in 1799 who dies later that same year with a Dr. Anderson Warfield], and Mary S. Magee (the sole surviving orphan who requests pecuniary aid in an 1829 petition to MD's General Assembly). Mr. Barnes informed me that Mary S. Magee is listed in Washington D.C. probate records. She married William A. Magee, formerly of Maryland. When she died she left her claims against the State of Maryland as the daughter of the Architect of the State House and College to a yong friend Dr. Robert Barry of Washington. As for Joseph, after rereading some of my earlier work Dr. Papenfuse and I believe that I might have found one article from a newspaper war between Luther Martin and Clark over his debts due by the State (See Notice to my Petitioners). When he moved back to Baltimore he petitioned the General Assembly several times to apply as an insolvent debtor and moved to 21 S. High Street, one door down from a Mr. John Clark, bricklayer (whom I believe to be another brother in conjunciton with the fact that he returned to the Port of Baltimore from London with a John Clark). Clark remarks about several lawsuits involving Morris, Nicholson, and Greenleaf and a Mr. William McCreery. I am currently trying to track them down but after checking the Court of the WS, Baltimore County Judicial Docket, and the Chancery Record, I have not found anything.

Database Management

This summer my project served as a test case for Betsy Bodziak's new Research Note Taking Management System. I find the system easy to enter data and I found the process incredibly helpful in reviewing materials previously located in a variety of places. The universal access remains the most beneficial component. I am able to work at home without loosing information (via missing disks etc) and can access from home all work accomplished at the archives. The system is very easy to access and only takes a few entries of material to become familiar. While I do find that I am able to use and retrieve information easily at this point, I would like to take this time to raise some issues that I thought might prove problematic for other researchers. With any system based upon a search engine, this system relies upon the individual to enter data on a particlar individual in a systematic manner. How does one distinguish between several individuals of the same name without having to tediously enter for example Isabella Clark Beale nee Ferguson (as compared to her niece Isabella Clark). I also find myself wondering at what pojnt Individual's should take on their own records. I know how I think but someone x years down the line might have trouble following my patterns (the search engine can only successfully function by hitting the particualr phrase I enter). I am also concerned about how one would search records once records must be saved on CD for lack of hard drive space. Will I have to produce several copies of CDs (ie one for home, one for here, one for Dr. Papenfuse and what does this mean for my universal access).

Misfires

Sources outside the Archives remain my biggest problem for this summer. With the loss of the Microdax TIF converter at Hopkins making scans is not as easy. Scanning from a photocopy inevitably looses some of the texture of the original document and of course produces only black and white copies. I also need to strengthen my management strategies of work outside the Archives. I need to spend some time in Washington D.C. tracking down probate records and reading manuscripts about other women with similar experiences to Isabella's on Greenleaf Point. Beginning next week I will try to catch the Hopkins shuttle to D.C. once a week to get a better idea of the private life of the Clark and Beale families in D.C. I must admit that I am dissappointed in my inability to track down Thomas K. Beale both before and after the family's exodus in 1801. In addition, Mary S. Magee's husband (according to her probate) is supposedly from Maryland but I have not found anything about him.

Suggestions for Next Year's Internship

Although I have enjoyed my experience here, I would like to make some suggestions for next year's internship. By working together on a smaller number of projects, I feel that a better sense of comraderie established between the interns last year as oppossed to this summer. By segregating the interns from the outset into specific projects, there is a loss of that sense of communal effort so integral to intellectual learning. For next summer, I would encourage the interns to talk about their projects. Perhaps this was not appropriate for the aims of this year, they might have differed from the rsearch focus last summer. I would also like to stress that I think it would be in the programs best interest to continue to focus on research and presentation. When I leave my experience at the archives, I will walk away with valuable experiience in first hand research and many electronic skills I never assumed a history major would need. This program is significant because it treats the college intern as an intelligent adult capable of making real contributions to history.