Washington Augustus Clark Papers
Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: Mss-0194
The papers consist of daybooks, miscellaneous papers and scrapbooks, including an oversize scrapbook. Among the daybooks is one that contains "Collections on account of Melton and Clark from 1871-1875," but most of the daybooks contain information pertaining to cattle breeding for the period 1879-1910. The miscellaneous papers contain notes for a talk to be given November 6, 1928, to the South Carolina Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy at the unveiling of a tablet commemorating the December 17, 1960, Secession Convention as well as several letters, including copies of outgoing letters; some of the copies are illegible. The scrapbooks cover a variety of subjects: the 1860 South Carolina Secession Convention, including a scrapbook containing biographical sketches, arranged by district, of its members that appeared in the December 18, 1910, issue of The State; events in South Carolina in 1866, with references to Wade Hampton and the "redshirts": cartoons, depicting an African-American character, known as "Hambone's Meditations", and drawn by cartoonist James Pinckney Alley of the Memphis, TN Commercial Appeal c. 1916; the State Agricultural and Mechanical Society of South Carolina and the state fair; weather, particularly coastal storms in South Carolina from 1854 to 1911; and Charleston in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Washington Augustus Clark was born at James Island, SC on February 22, 1842, son of Ephraim Mikell Clark and Susan Jane (Bailey) Clark of James Island. He attended school on James Island until the age of fourteen. From 1857 to 1859 he attended Mount Zion College in Winnsboro, SC. In 1862, shortly before his graduation from South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina), he joined the Confederate forces. He was attached as a second lieutenant to Colonel Gaillard's regiment in Charleston. That company disbanded and Clark enlisted as a member of Company I, 3d South Carolina Cavalry. On December 26, 1866 he married Virginia Melton, daughter of Mary (Buford) Melton and Cyrus Davis Melton (a professor of law at the University of South Carolina); they had seven children. Clark was a planter of sea island cotton on James Island from 1866 to 1871; in 1871 he moved to Columbia, SC to practice law; he formed a partnership with his father-in-law, Cyrus Davis Melton until Melton's death in 1875. In 1879 Clark formed a new partnership with Judge Samuel W. Melton, the brother of his father-in-law. Later he became a banker and in 1881 was elected president of the Carolina National Bank of Columbia. He was a community leader in Columbia. He was a member and later chairman of the South Carolina Historical Commission. In addition to his other activities Clark was the proprietor of the Elmwood Stock Farm in Columbia, SC. Virginia Clark died on October 4, 1890. In 1892 he married Rosa Berwick Legare who also predeceased him. In his later years he lived at the home of his daughter and son-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Fletcher S. Brockman. He died at his daughter's home on March 7, 1931.
16 item(s) (including 1 oversize scrapbook.)
English
The collection was donated to Clemson University Libraries by Mrs. Fletcher Brockman in 1978, accession 78-9.
Entry Blanks for American Jersey Cattle Club Herd Register has been cataloged as a book and is located in the Special Collections Unit.
Part of the Clemson University Libraries Special Collections and Archives Repository