Elsie May (King) Clark (1834 - 1919)

Descendants

Biography

Elsie King Clark, born in Scotland, married James Clark, also of Scotland, and made their home presumably in Ireland, where their three children were born. James Clark apparently died after 1865, after which they immigrated to the United States with her family, first to Boston, MA, where their daughter Harriott Elsie Clark was born in 1868. By 1880 Elsie and her husband Thomas made their home in Bay City, Michigan The eldest brothers, James and Alexander, came to New Dungeness to be with their uncle, William King, who homesteaded the present Elliott Clark farm about 20 years before. King, who came to the west coast via Cape Horn in about 1853, was their mother's brother.

Two years after James and Alexander Clark came to Dungeness they were followed by their mother, Mrs. Thomas Clark and their brothers William and Thomas and a sister Elsie. Their widowed mother had married her first husband's brother. Thomas and Harriet were born to the second marriage. James Clark, when he first came to Clallam County, worked as a carpenter and drove oxen in the woods for the Pt. Discovery mill. In 1866, 72 years ago, he walked the beach from Dungeness to the Eden Valley ranch that was to be his home 61 years. He bought preemption rights on the 160 acres originally settled by Wilbur Coble. On his new ranch in the wilderness he raised cattle that he drove to a Port Angeles market over a trail. The trail developed later into a road. His mother and sister Elsie and brother Alexander lived with him on; the ranch. He was the sole surviving member of his generation of the Clark family.

in 1885 William King passed away, having willed his homestead to his sister. It became the Clark farm and had remained that way ever since. James moved from his Eden Valley ranch to the home of his nephew, Elliott Clark, his brother Tom's son. At the home were Mr. & Mrs. Clark and their two sons, Robert and Elliott Clark, Jr. He had lived on the present Elliott Clark farm when a young man. Before fracturing his hip early in 1957, Mr. Clark was very active. He operated farm machinery and did wood carving and building on the Clark farm.

The Clark Farm, “Bonnie View Farm,” was settled in 1853 and patented in 1869. It has been in the Clark family all of these years and is the oldest continuously operated family farm in Washington State. The original farm included approximately 220 acres, plus the Cline Spit; today 115 acres of farm land remain and are currently used for hay and cattle.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Clark's Chambers B&B History

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31004726/elsie-clark
• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L2GM-9Y6
• https://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/DigitalObject/Download/6a15a66e-592d-48b7-aa47-6df254312312
• http://www.olypen.com/rfoss/pioneerobitc.html#clarkjamesf Transcribed and formatted for the Internet by Carol Foss c 1999 All rights reserved. This notice must remain when copied or downloaded
• Year: 1880; Census Place: Bay City, Bay, Michigan; Roll: 571; Page: 308D; Enumeration District: 014
• "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-D1P8-DZ?cc=1325221&wc=9B7P-PB9%3A1030550101%2C1030650801%2C1030650802 : 5 August 2014), Washington > Clallam > ED 13 Blyn, Seguin, Rena, Dungeness, and Coleville Precincts > image 1 of 25; citing NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).