Evening Bulletin, San Francisco, December 20, 1880, p. 3, col. 4
Marriages
CLARK—DUTCHER—In this city, December 18 [1880], by Rev. Dr. Scott, Frederick A. Clark, U.S. Geological Survey, to Sarah L. Dutcher.
On December 18, 1880, Sarah L. Dutcher, a 35 years old native of Australia married Frederick A. Clark, a 40 years old full time employee of the San Francisco branch of the U.S. Geological Survey. It appears that this was the first marriage for both.
Evening Bulletin, San Francisco, December 20, 1880, p. 3, col. 4
Marriages
CLARK—DUTCHER—In this city, December 18 [1880], by Rev. Dr. Scott, Frederick A. Clark, U.S. Geological Survey, to Sarah L. Dutcher.
Another newspaper note a few days later shows them in the Hotel Del Monte, in Monterey Bay, probably on their honeymoon.
Among things that could have brought Sarah and Frederick together, it is easy to identify two: They both knew and esteemed a noted California photographer, Carleton E. Watkins, and they both shared love for mountains. Sarah was an adventerous outdoorswoman, and one the first lady who made the Half Dome ascent, and Frederick, in his capacity of a topographer, had made trips and climbs all over California and the South West.
Fred was a native of La Porte, Indiana, born in June 1840. His father, Amzi Clark, was married twice, and Frederick was one of four children from Amzi's first marriage with Candace R. Bailey. After Candace's death in 1848, Amzi remarried. He and his new wife, Harriet Crosby, had two more children. During the 1860 Census, Frederick was a student, attending Wabash College, at Crawfordsville, Indiana. He left the school and joined the first wave of volunteers at the start of the Civil War. By 1863, he serves as a topographic engineer in the 20th Army Corps. He became ill with tuberculosis and resigned his commission early in 1864. I thank Paul F. Clark for the information about the early years of Frederick's life.
In the fall of 1864, Clarence King
desperately needed more helping hands in order to complete
his Yosemite Survey in time, and he borrowed a young man
(a budding civil engineer?) Frederick A. Clark from Mariposa Mining Company.
Interactions between Clark and King are thoroughly described in
Clarence King's Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, first
printed in 1872. The book not only describes Clark's participation
in the Yosemite Survey, but also Frederick Clark's trip with King
to Mount Shasta in 1870. At that time,
Mount Shasta came in focus of King's interest. In
the fall of that year he assembled a party which consisted of
geologists Arnold Hague and Samuel Emmons, clerks O. L. Palmer
and Albert Clark, and topographers Frederick Clark and Allen Wilson. King also
engaged the Yosemite-famous photographer Carlton Watkins
and invited the landscape painter Gilbert Munger as an unpaid
expedition guest. Watkins' frequently reproduced photo from that
Shasta trip is now in the Special Collections at
Stanford University Libraries. A detail of that photo,
showing Frederick Clark testing his equipment, is attached. (Importance of
Gilbert Munger's presence on that trip will be discussed below).
Between 1874 and 1876, Clark was working all over the South West
for Wheeler's "West of the One Hundreth Meridian Survey"
(see annual reports of the Wheeler Survey,
for years ending June 30, 1875, and June 30, 1876).
Since George M. Wheeler was an officer
of the Corps of Engineers, Frederick was surrounded by
military personnel on these missions, and was directly working
(as a civilian employee) under Lieutenant Rogers Birnie, Jr. (1874),
Lieutenant Charles C. Morrison (1875), and Lieutenant Eric Bergland (1876).
A long article in the New York Times of July 3, 1875, p. 3,
describes C. C. Morrison's division of the Wheeler expedition, and
mentiones Clark: "The outfit consists of nine men and twenty-two mules,
the men including Mr. Frederick A. Clark the topographer, a meteorologist, and
the Times correspondent..."
This experience may have incited Clark to re-join the Army Corps of
Engineers and pursue, at least briefly, a military career.
In 1877/78, Frederick may have been assigned to a project of surveying
the area of the Hot Springs of Arkansas. An article in Volume 61 of the
Harper's New Monthly Magazine from 1877/78, p. 210, describes that
project, and states that "the corps of engineers and surveyors is in charge of
Major Frederick A. Clark". Although there is a remote possibility that
two people with the same name were serving as surveyors and
topographers at that time, there are indirect indications that "Major Clark"
was the same person as Frederick Clark from King's Survey in 1864.
Documents show that Major Clark was actively corresponding with
Frederick Law Olmsted at the time of the Hot Springs survey
(see, e.g., Jacob Weidenmann, by Rudy J. Favretti, pp. 99-100).
On the other hand, we know that
Olmsted used to be the supervisor of the Mariposa Company,
when Fred Clark from the Company was "on loan" to Clarence King's team.
Fred A. Clark, together with Gustavus R. Bechler, also produced the first topographic (with contour lines) map of the Teton Range in 1878.
We have the following description of Clark from the time immediately before his marriage to Sarah. It was written by his assistant, Alonzo Welles (see Reminiscent ramblings, by A. M. Welles, Denver, 1905, p. 167):
The Major was a man now approaching middle age and had spent many years upon the survey under Hayden, Wheeler and Powell. He was rather slight in build, though decidedly erect. He wore a dark moustache and beard of medium length. The beard was parted in the middle, after the style of a German field marshal, and brushed so abruptly apart that each particular hair occupied a position at absolutely right angles to its line of natural growth. In fact, the Major was noticeably a la militaire in all his movements and appearance, and as it developed later, in his system of operations also...
When Clarence King became the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey in mid 1879, he appointed Fred A. Clark on July 9, 1879, as a topographer at an annual salary of $2,500 [King's salary was $6,000 per year; from the U.S. Geological Survey Annual Report, 1880]. Clark was then immediately assigned (July 17, 1879) to a two-year project of topographical survey of Eureka, Nevada. The Census of 1880 found him still in Eureka, and he was described as single, age 40, born in Indiana, working as "Topographer USGS". His wedding to Sarah probably had to wait until that work has been completed. In a letter from Eureka, Nevada, of September 30, 1880, Arnold Hague wrote to King: "...The topographical party, under Mr. F. A. Clark, is well organized, field work is progressing rapidly, and will be completed, unless the weather proves exceptionally bad, by the 20th of December [1880]". [Annual Report, cited above, pp. 31-32]. Apparently, the weather had cooperated, because Clark's wedding took place two days before that deadline.
The San Francisco directory of 1881 presents him as "Clark Frederick A., topographer [with] U.S. Geological Survey, 320 California, room 13, r[esidence] Occidental Hotel". Sarah is not listed, but it is quite possible that she lived with Fred in "Occidental". One year later, Clark is no longer listed in the 1882 edition of the San Francisco directory. It appears that shortly after completing his map of the Eureka mining district (late February of 1881), Clark drops from the USGS payrol. Biographies of all early employees of USGS were published in an article by John C. Rabbitt and Mary C. Rabbitt (see Science Vol. 119, May 28, 1954, pp. 741-758), but a note about Fred Clark (p. 747) is quite brief, and doesn't tell us anything about what happened to him after 1881: "Fred A. Clark, topographer, began making triangulation, leveling, and topographic surveys in the Eureka district, Nevada, under general supervision of Arnold Hague [who was geologist-in-charge, with headquarters in San Francisco]".
There is a possibility that Sarah and Frederick moved to Oakland in 1881 or 1882. There are several references in passenger lists from that era to "F. A. Clark and wife, Oakland". Frederick's brother Albert B. Clark died in Orange, Los Angeles County on April 24, 1883, and a certain "F. A. Clark from Oakland" stays at the Pico House, a downtown Los Angeles hotel, on April 25. Was that Frederick coming for the funeral? On Dec 17, 1883, the San Francisco Bulletin identifies Fred as "Major F. A. Clark", an "Assistant Division Superintendent of the Central Pacific Railroad in Oakland". By the second part of 1885, Frederick resides at 909 Peralta Street in Oakland. His marriage, however, is in jeopardy: San Francisco and Oakland newspapers of December 15, 1885, had brief reports of an impending divorce suit brought by Frederick A. Clark against Sarah L. Clark. The Daily Alta California of Jan 9, 1886 prints the following short news from Oakland: "Fred A. Clark has been granted a decree of divorce from Sarah L. Clark". Nothing is known about Sarah Dutcher Clark after January 1886. Did she move to another region? Did she use her skills in photography to earn for living? What name did she use? Where and when did she die? We may never know.
In 1888, two years after the divorce from Sarah,
a civil engineer and surveyor with the name Frederick
Clark reappears in San Francisco directories. He has an office
at 420 California, where several other surveyors had their
places of business. If we dismiss the possibility of two
different Frederick A. Clarks in the same line of business,
then surveyor Clark, Sarah's former husband,
must be the same Clark that showed up in the
1888 Directory. Frederick now lists his profession as
"civil engineer". And he is married again!
Fred A. Clark and Mary A[deline] Clements were united in matrimony on
January 24, 1888. This was a second marriage for both. Mary (Addie)
was previously married to Robert Clements,
and had a daughter Pearl, born 1877 in San Francisco, from the first marriage.
Frederick's second wife would die several years later, in 1894,
and, for years to come, all his love and care would be devoted
to his step daughter Pearl.
On January 6, 1897, the Los Angeles Times, p. 7,
prints a letter signed by "Maj. Fred A. Clark, San Francisco" on how to
improve the Griffith Park. In the letter he again recalls his former
supervisor from Mariposa Company, and calls him "my friend Fred Law
Olmstead[!], 'father of American parks'..."
In April of 1897, Frederick's title in the San Francisco Directory
is expanded to "Clark, Frederick A Major, civil, hydraulic and
mining engineer and U.S. deputy mineral surveyor, 420 California, room 17".
He would keep that office space until at least 1903. According to
San Francisco Directories, he also
rents appartments in various luxury boarding houses in San Francisco, e.g.,
at 980 Pine, 1110 Sacrament, or at 30 Post. In some of the years between
1888 and 1903, his residence is simply listed as "Oakland",
where he probably had a permanent home.
During the 1900 Census, he indeed lives in Oakland,
at 811 East Twenty-second Street. He is a widower, and Pearl
lives in the same household. She is now 22. Her occupation
is not listed in the Census.
On March 3, 1904, a brief note in the San Francisco Call, p. 14, col. 7,
announces: "Bankrupt Engineer. Frederick A. Clark,
civil engineer, San Francisco, filed a petition in insolvency yesterday in
the United States District Court. He owes $2534 and has no assets".
The Census of 1910 finds him living with Pearl's family in Brooklyn
(Pearl is now Mrs. George A. Lewthwaite). Frederick died on December 13, 1920,
in New York. His wish was to be buried alongside his second wife, in San
Francisco. Their grave can be found in in the San Francisco National Cemetery,
in the Presidio. A marker on the grave describes him
as "Frederick A. Clark, 1st Lt., Co. C, 29th Ind. Inf., Civil War",
and his wife is simply identified as "Addie M. Clark".
The following lead is perhaps worth pursuing, and possibly could help learning more on Frederick's first marriage, and about Sarah Dutcher's fate. Michael Schroeder, who is an authority in Gilbert Munger's work, talks about Munger's trip to Shasta with Clarence King and Frederick Clark in 1870, and adds that "both King and Clark would later become collectors of Munger's paintings". A catalogue of Munger's oils, indeed has the following note about the painting entitled Yosemite Valley from Old Inspiration Point: "This painting descended in the family of Frederick Clark, a member of the King geological survey with Munger, to the current owners". The descendants allegedly had also kept Fred's family Bible, annotated with many important dates from his life. This document, if found, could perhaps give us some additional information about the years between 1880 and 1885, and Sarah's fate.
Another possible lead is also related to that Shasta trip on which Clarence King was accompanied by Frederick Clark. In his Mountaineering..., King lists two Clarks on that trip: Frederick, and Albert B. Clark, a clerk who would serve also as barometric observer. King doesn't elaborate about possible relationship between two Clarks, but a note in the Yreka Union on September 28, 1870, p. 3, identifies, among other members of King's team, "two brothers named Clark". Census data from 1850 and 1860 confirm that Albert B. Clark was Frederick A. Clark's younger brother. Albert's descendants could know more about Frederick and his life.
