David Clarkson

From The Peopling of New York City

David Clarkson proved to be the easiest out of all the elusive immimigrants assinged to me. In order to dig up anything I could find on a relatively ordinary person who lived over 200 years ago, extensive research was needed. Mostly however most of my time was spend, tirelessly searching for information ancestory.com and in the New Yor Public Library at Bryant Square since most of the other sources turn out to be pretty much fruitless. While in the New York Public Library i was lucky enough to be assisted by an extremely nice librarian who went into the back room and miraculously dug up a folder whcih containted a sort of family tee of the Clarkson Family, prepared for a marraige involving a decendant of the Clarkson family.

The First Clarckson that I was able to dig up information on was Robert Clarkson. He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England. He married twice once to Agnes Lilly in 1610 and once to Hester Tailer in 1629. He had seven children and eventually died in either 1631-1632. The two children that matter most to me are Robert and David. To me, the fact that Robert had a son named Robert will become of tremendous signifcance in analyzing the Clarckson family, as we see that the Clarksons have a tradition of naming their children after themselves. But the son that is the focus of my research is David who was born March 3,1621 or 1622. This David was born in England, graduated Trinaty college, was a preacher, and died in St. Dunstan,Stephany. He was also married twice, once to Elizabeth Holcroft and once to Elizabeth Lodwick.He is not the David mentioned in the appendix of New York Burning, but he has a sun also named David who married Lady Sands in the year 1690. This David is most probably the father of the David mentioned in New York Burning. ^[1]

As we know from New York Burning, David Clarkson was both a slave holder and a merchant who lived in the South Ward. To FInd more infomation about him i used mostly Historical Newspapers to get a glimpse into his life. David Clarskon must have been a very prominant figure in New York since on October 13, 1750 he, Cornelius Van Horne, Paul Richard, and Henry Cruger took an Ad out in the New York Gazette, asking people to vote for them in the upcoming General Assembly elections.^[2] The Next piece of evidence I came across in the uncovering of Mr. Clarkson's life was actually a news article about his death. According to the article, David Clarkson died around April 15, 1751 at 57 years of age. ^[3] The fact that his death even made the newspaper as news shows that he must have been an extremely important person in New York and the fact that the news article tremendously praises him suggests that he must have been well liked.

My Research then became a little more dificult as I continued to find articles about David Clarkson written about him after his death. This has to be for one of three reason. Either there was a mistake in one of the articles, the David Clarkson after 1751 is an unrelated person with the same name, or the most likely, that this David Clarkson in the new articles was the son of the David Clarson mentioned in New York Burning and who died in 1751. From all the research into the Clarkson family so far i concluded that the Clarkson have a deep tradition in naming children after their fathers name. So, in my opinion the david Clarkson mentioned after 1751 is most probably the son of the David Clarkson who died in 1751.

This David Clarkson followed in his fathers footsteps and was also a slave owner and a merchant. An article in The New York Mercury in 1756, in which David Clarkson offers a 40 shilling reward in exchange for the return of his runaway slave Jack, proves definatively that he has many if not one slave. ^[4] Also from other newspaper articles we see that this David Clarkson was a merechant who has a store at Whitehall and sold refined sugar, spices, peper, tea, and East Indian goods. ^[5] According to my research on Ancestory.com this David Clarkson was married to ELizabeth French in New York City in 1749. (Marraige ID 2220285767) ^[6] Also According to the 1790 US Census unlike his father who lived in the South Ward, this David Clarkson lived in the North Ward. ^[7]

References

1. ↑ Crosby Clarckson Collection ,New York Public Libaray Bryant Square Branch.
2. ↑ New York Gazette 13 Aug. 1750: 4. America's Historical Newspapers. New York Public Library, New York.
3. ↑ New York Gazette 15 April. 1751: 2. America's Historical Newspapers. New York Public Library, New York.
4. ↑ New York Mercury 03 May. 1756: 4. America's Historical Newspapers. New York Public Library, New York.
5. ↑ New York Gazette 13 December. 1752: 3. America's Historical Newspapers. New York Public Library, New York.
6. ↑ Genealogical Research Library,comp..New York City Marriages, 1600's-1800's,Provo,UT,USA:The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.
7. ↑ United States. 1790 Census.