Our Past Is Present September 21, 2018

September 21, 2018

            This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.

            We told you that our story today would be more about “Widow Clark”, the woman whose husband had a ferry business to transport people and animals across the Republican River, and comes from an article written by Gaylynn Childs. 

            “Mary McGown had come to America with an older sister and her husband to get away from her overbearing stepmother.  In 1850, Mary married a young Englishman, Charles Francis Clarke, in St. Louis, Missouri, who had also come to America for adventure in the new world.  He eventually joined the Army and while in the Dragoons, rose to the rank of Sergeant Major.  When he was station at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri he wrote to his parents in England that on the 29^th of December he was going to marry Mary McGown.  They were later transferred to Fort Leavenworth and after several campaigns against the Indians, SGM Clarke and his family were assigned to Fort Riley in January of 1858.

            Soon after this he bought a bridge at the Fort for $2,000, by paying installments and collected tolls from the heavy traffic going across the Republican River. There was a severe drought in 1860, which was followed by a heavy winter, which brought about spring floods.  The flooding washed the bridge away in early 1861, so the Clarkes quickly purchased a ferry boat to carry the traffic across the river.

            Charles went back into service in the Army with the outbreak of the Civil War as a Captain.  In December of 1862, CPT Clarke contracted Scarlet Fever and died. Mrs. Clarke had been able to live on Post since her husband’s death and on the strength of her ferry business.  In 1865, she was given notice to move and her ferry property was appropriated.  She purchased a small stone house at Fourth and Adams Streets in Junction City and lived there still missing the presence of her husband, who had passed three years earlier.  Mary was a key player in the establishment of the St. Xavier’s Catholic Church in Junction City. 

            And… that’s today’s story on “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.