William's birth year (1580) is estimated from. See "The American Genealogist" Vol 39 page 100 for a lengthy discussion of this family.
William died in 1647 in Salem.
100
THE CHILDREN OF MR. WILLIAM CLARKE OF SALEM, MASS.
by Frances Davis McTeer, A. M. , of Detroit, Michigan
and Frederick C. Warner, F.S., of North Amherst, Mass.
Mr. William Clarke was an innkeeper, proprietor in 1645 of "The Ship's Tavern" in Salem, Mass.; he is frequently mentioned in the Town Records, a property owner, a man of means, and an officer in the town's military company [Henry F. Waters, The Gedney and Clark Families of Salem, 1880, 5-11; Sidney Perley, History of Salem, 192_, 2:183j.
In the summer of 1647 Clarke died rather suddenly, perhaps a victim of the peculiar epidemical sickness which afflicted the colony in June of that year [Winthrop's Journal, 2:326. On 12:3m: 1647 Clarke was paid £2 .14.06 from the Salem Town rate presumably to compensate his expense, with Capt. Hawthorne and Mr. Corwin, in curinge for Goody Lamberte and her "dyett" [Salem T. R. 1:151]. But on 6: 5m: 1647 Corp. William Hawthorne, Mr. Georg Corwin and the widow Katherine Clark, all of Salem, were appointed administrators of the estate of William Clark, late of Salem deceased [Essex Co. Prob .Rec.1:65-67]. The estate was inventoried at 586.02.O2, including a 200 acre farm near Cedar Pond desingnated hereafter as the Clarke Farm, two dwelling houses, part ownership of two barkes and a shallop, 1500 lbs ot tobacco, cart of three hogsheads of sugar, 40 lbs of ginger, as well as other foodstuffs arc extensive furnishings belonging to the tavern [Perley, 2:183-4; Essex Co. Qtly. Ct. Rec. 1:119].
Evidently these commercial assets were speedily re- leased to the widow, for on 9: 5m: 1647, the very date of the inventory, Mrs. Clark of Salem was licensed to keep the ordinary at Salem, she to provide a "fit man yt is godlie to manage the business [ibid. 1:123]. There is no record of the disposition of the Clarke real estate although there is every evidence, as we shall see later, that the fan, was given to the widow for the beneilt of her minor children. On 11 Nov. 1647 on Mrs. Katherine Clarke's petition, the General Court ordered the distribution of the part of her husband's estate "as doth remain in specie" she to have £150, the four yourger children £110 with £40 out for schooling, the rest to be paid to the four at age 21 or at marriage "ye eldest son to have £28 and the other three £14 each, ye eldest sonne by his former wife £20, ye other £10, she yt is married £5" [Mass. Bay Col. Rec. 2:203]. The Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex Co., Mass. [1:32] for a court held at Salem on 30:10m: 1647, after reciting the same distribution to the widow and for the younger children's education, concludes "The elder son to have a double pchon and his eldest son by his former wife to have £20, the other £10 and shee that was married in his lifetime £5. These records of inventory and distribution are the whole account of William Clarke's estate settlement. Ills children are never mentioned by name. There are no probate papers, no guardianship records, and no way of knowing what happened to the assets of the estate other than the Farm and the cash on hand. The terms of the distribution are somewhat unusual in that the double pchon mentioned in the Essex County record was allowed to the eldest son of the second wife . However, this distribution dealt only with certain cash assets; all the heirs were allotted definite specified sums, with the double share applying only to the £70 remaining after the education of the minor children; and none of the amounts named was anyway near even one share of the inventoried estate.
Aside from these two records the children of the Salem innkeeper have received but scant genealogical attention and that with a rather negative conclusion. In his account of "The Prince Family" [TAG, supra, 14:83-36], G. Andrews Moriarty lists William Clarke's four daugters by the second marriage and mentions the existence of three older children living at the time of their father's death "but of whom there is no further trace in the records." The purpose of the present article is two fold: I) to justify by probability the following identifIcation of the three older children of Mr. William Clarke; and 2) to present some new interpretations of the data regarding the children by his second wife.
