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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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CLARKE, RICHARD SAMUEL (1772-1844)

CLARKE, RICHARD SAMUEL, high sheriff, 1815-37; b. New Milford, Conn., 22 Oct 1772, s/o the Rev. Richard Samuel Clarke and Rebecca Sturges; m. Mary Lucretia Doyle, a native of Chaleur Bay, N.B.; d. Chatham, 17 Aug 1844.

Richard S. Clarke and his twin brother Samuel R. Clarke were the fourth and fifth of ten children of the Rev. Richard S. Clarke, the rector of the Church of England at New Milford, Conn., from 1767 to 1786. The Rev. Mr Clarke, a graduate of Yale and King's College, New York, became the first rector at Gagetown, N.B., in 1786, and his wife and eight surviving children came up from Connecticut to join him there in 1787. In 1811 he moved to St Stephen, and his son Samuel R. Clarke was ordained and installed as his successor at Gagetown.

Richard S. Clarke petitioned in 1802 for a grant of land in Queens County, but he later migrated north to Chaleur Bay. In March 1810 he was made a captain in the 3rd Battalion of Northumberland County militia, one division of which mustered at St Peters (Bathurst). Later in the same month, he joined with his father and brothers Samuel R. and John M. Clarke in petitioning for a parcel of 2,000 acres of land near Bathurst. The grant was not made, but he stayed in the area and had a sawmill and grist mill in operation on "the little Nepisiguit" in 1812. It was at around this time that he married Mary L. Doyle, the daughter of an early settler at Beresford, she being roughly sixteen years of age, and he about forty.

In the spring of 1815 Clarke and his family relocated in Newcastle, where he took up an appointment as high sheriff of Northumberland County - the county consisting at that time of all the territory which later made up the counties of Northumberland, Gloucester, Restigouche, and Kent. William Wanton, the collector of customs at Saint John, approved of his also assuming the duties of collector (technically sub-collector) of customs and preventive officer for the Miramichi, but when Henry Wright was named to succeed Wanton as collector at Saint John, in May 1816, he sent his twenty-year-old son John Wright to Chatham as sub-collector. Clarke filed a complaint with the customs authorities in London, stating that John Wright was a minor, but to no avail.

In 1818, Clarke was visited by his twin brother, the Rev. Samuel R. Clarke, who conducted church services at the courthouse and baptized some twenty children. When St Paul's Church was erected several years later he was one of its wardens, and he and his wife had a number of children christened by the first rector, the Rev. Samuel Bacon.

The most noteworthy event of Clarke's tenure as sheriff occurred in 1822 when "gangs of recently arrived Irish" and "hundreds of sailors from the ships in the harbors" ran riot in the towns and about the Miramichi countryside. Since the civil authority, of which he was head, could not control the outbreak, a detachment of the 74th Regiment was dispatched from Fredericton. A special court was held for fifteen days. Twenty men were charged with riot and assault upon the sheriff and constables, and with numerous other offenses. Fifty-nine sentences were handed down. Some of the rioters received fifty lashes. Others were stood in the pillory. More persons were jailed than at any previous time in the history of the province.

Clarke, who was sheriff for twenty-two years, was respected for his integrity, but he was not a very effective manager of either his own or the county's affairs. He was in dire financial straits in 1829. In 1832 he appealed to the House of Assembly for relief, arguing that many of his obligations had been incurred through his work as sheriff. While the seriousness of his plight was acknowledged, his appeal for assistance was denied. Some members contended that he had been negligent in the discharge of his duties, even to the point of permitting other persons to sign his name. He was succeeded as sheriff in 1837 by his eldest son, Richard Marshall Clarke, but his performance proved to be thoroughly unsatisfactory, and he was replaced in 1840 by John M. Johnson Sr.

Clarke and his wife, Mary L. Doyle, had fourteen or more children born between 1812 and 1838, some of whom died in infancy. Following his death she moved to St James parish in Charlotte County. She was living at Clarke's Point, near Pomeroy Ridge, at the time of her death in 1877. In 1871, quite a number of the children, who were then in their forties and fifties, were still living at home. In the census of that year the eldest son, Richard M. Clarke, was enumerated as head of the household. Three of the daughters are known to have married, including Sarah Ann Clarke, the wife of James D. Lewin, who was born at Chaleur Bay in March 1813.

Sources

[b] Clarke family data [d] NB Courier 31 Aug 1844 / Baxter; church records (baptisms of children); Facey-Crowther; Gleaner 20 Mar 1832; Hale (will of the Rev. Richard S. Clarke); Lawrence; Lee, G.; MacNutt (re. riots, 1822); Mercury 27 Jan 1829; PANB (petition of Richard S. Clarke and others, Queens Co., 1802; petition of the Rev. Richard Clarke, re. Gloucester Co., 1812; petition of Richard S. Clarke, re. Gloucester Co., 1821; sheriff's bonds; will of the Rev. Samuel R. Clarke); Sabine; Spray (DK and ENC); Telegraph 17 Nov 1877


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