Brief Life History of William Franklin
When William Franklin Clark was born on 1 January 1832, in Union, South Carolina, United States, his father, Littleton Ballard Clark, was 31 and his mother, Hannah Vinson Jackson, was 25. He married Nancy Margaret Kyle on 9 May 1854, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 1 daughter. He lived in District 496, Fayette, Georgia, United States in 1850 and Western Division, Walker, Alabama, United States in 1860. He died on 27 August 1884, in Coweta, Georgia, United States, at the age of 52.
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Family Time Line
Sources (4)
- Franklin Clark in household of Littleton Clark, "United States Census, 1850"
- Legacy NFS Source: William Franklin Clark - Individual or family possessions: Family Bible: birth-name: William Franklin Clark
- William F. Clark, "Alabama Marriages, 1816-1957"
Spouse and Children
Parents and Siblings
World Events (7)
1832 · The Black Hawk War
Convinced that a group of Native American tribes were hostile, The United States formed a frontier militia to stop them in their tracks. Even though Black Hawk was hoping to avoid bloodshed while trying to resettle on tribal land, U.S. officials opened fire on the Native Americans. Black Hawk then responded to this confrontation by successfully attacking the militia at the Battle of Stillman's Run and then left northward. After a few months the militia caught up with Black Hawk and his men and defeated them at the Battle of Wisconsin Heights. While being weakened by hunger, injuries and desertion, Black Hawk and the rest of the many native survivors retreated towards the Mississippi. Unfortunately, Black Hawk and other leaders were later captured when they surrendered to the US forces and were then imprisoned for a year.
1832 · Worcester v. Georgia
In 1830, U.S. President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act which required all Native Americans to relocate to areas west of the Mississippi River. That same year, Governor Gilmer of Georgia signed an act which claimed for Georgia all Cherokee territories within the boundaries of Georgia. The Cherokees protested the act and the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, Worcester v. Georgia, ruled in 1832 that the United States, not Georgia, had rights over the Cherokee territories and Georgia laws regarding the Cherokee Nation were voided. President Jackson didn’t enforce the ruling and the Cherokees did not cede their land and Georgia held a land lottery anyway for white settlers.
1846
U.S. acquires vast tracts of Mexican territory in wake of Mexican War including California and New Mexico.
Name Meaning
English: from Middle English clerk, clark ‘clerk, cleric, writer’ (Old French clerc; see Clerc ). The original sense was ‘man in a religious order, cleric, clergyman’. As all writing and secretarial work in medieval Christian Europe was normally done by members of the clergy, the term clerk came to mean ‘scholar, secretary, recorder, or penman’ as well as ‘cleric’. As a surname, it was particularly common for one who had taken only minor holy orders. In medieval Christian Europe, clergy in minor orders were permitted to marry and so found families; thus the surname could become established.
Irish (Westmeath, Mayo): in Ireland the English surname was frequently adopted, partly by translation for Ó Cléirigh; see Cleary .
Americanized form of Dutch De Klerk or Flemish De Clerck or of variants of these names, and possibly also of French Clerc . Compare Clerk 2 and De Clark .
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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