Daniel Clark, Jr. was an important figure in Louisiana history during the time surrounding the acquisition of the territory by the United States. However, most people have never heard of him. I had never heard of him until I started to research all of my ancestor Aaron King’s neighbors on the 1830 census (Daniel’s close cousins were next door neighbors), but since the time I first noticed him, he’s become sort of a constant in the background of my research. He seems to be connected to everybody somehow. And drama followed him, even long after his death.
So who was this guy?
Daniel Clark was a native of Sligo, Ireland, born in 1766, and was educated at the prestigious Eton College in the United Kingdom. The “Jr.” in his name is not to signify that his father’s name was also Daniel Clark; it was not. However, Daniel’s uncle was also named Daniel Clark, and the “Jr.” was used to distinguish between the two men, who both emigrated to America and were in business together in Mississippi and Louisiana. Daniel Clark Sr. came to America and was well established already when Daniel Clark Jr. decided to join him. Daniel Clark Jr. spent first some time in Germantown, Pennsylvania, then arrived in Orleans in December 1786. He worked in his uncle’s business as a clerk.
Daniel was fluent in French and learned Spanish by working as a translator in the office of the Spanish governor of Louisiana, Miro. He was involved in trade, acting as agent shipping products from one part of the country to another. Daniel was also often involved in buying and selling slaves. He became very wealthy through his various enterprises and became the owner of a huge amount of real estate in Louisiana. At the time of his death, he owned about a third of the real estate of New Orleans, and large sections of other parts of Louisiana as well. Today, he’s probably remembered more than anything for the extremely lengthy legal cases related to his succession after his death. His daughter, Myra Clark Gaines, fought the longest-running legal battle in U.S. history over her inheritance, lasting more than seventy years after Daniel’s death. Myra became something of a local celebrity because of her tenacity in her pursuit of what she considered to be her rightful inheritance.
So why is Daniel interesting enough to me that I feel compelled to write a whole post about him? I could probably write an entire book about the guy, honestly. I’m surprised no one ever has (although books have been written about the Myra Clark Gaines case!). I just need to get some things off my chest about Daniel Clark. 😂
Daniel Clark may have been a driving force behind the decision of the United States to purchase the Louisiana Territory from France.
Daniel, at least, appears to have considered himself instrumental in effecting the Louisiana Purchase. It’s not clear what exactly his role was there, but Daniel seems to have believed that in exchange for his important contributions to that process, he deserved to be appointed the territorial governor of Louisiana. One way he was involved was by sending reports to Thomas Jefferson about various aspects of the territory, including information about the various indigenous tribes in the area and the region’s geography. Perhaps he thought he was pitching the advantages of purchasing the territory to the President, eventually convincing him to pursue the deal, but it more seems likely to me that the deal would have gone through with or without him and he was one voice among many advocating for the purchase than that the whole thing was his idea, without which I’d still live in Spain or France.
Daniel, of course, was never appointed governor. This perceived slight surely had a massive impact on Daniel’s relationship with the man who was eventually appointed to fill that role, W. C. C. Claiborne. At one point, Daniel and Claiborne actually fought a duel, in which the governor was wounded quite seriously (although he did recover).
Many opinions of people who knew Daniel regarding Daniel’s fitness for the office of governor have survived in letters and other documentation. They give a glimpse into how polarizing of a character he really was.
Daniel’s friend, Benjamin Morgan, wrote in a letter to Chandler Price in 1803 that although Daniel himself always denied any desire to be governor of the territory, Morgan did not believe him. Morgan wrote that although Daniel was a friend, he was “deficient in dignity of Character & Sterling verity to fill the office of Governor.”
A French commissioner for Louisiana, Pierre Clement de Laussat, had this to say about Daniel Clark in his memoirs:
Clark was possessed by restlessness and a craving for domination and distinction. To tell the truth, he really did not know what he wanted. He readily accepted affection and flattery from others, as well as their prejudices and animosities of the most contradictory kind; and he fluctuated between them. Even though he repeatedly said that he did not seek any prominent position, he found it strange that anyone else but he had been charged with the confidence of his government, and he could not disguise his grudge. He bustled around a great deal in order to seem important and, by so doing, often made foolish mistakes.
And Claiborne himself, of course, had mostly negative things to say about Clark, although compared to how Clark talked about his enemies, Claiborne comes off as extremely fair and balanced in his interpretations of Clark’s character. Claiborne to then-Secretary of State James Madison in 1804:
Mr. Daniel Clark also manifests much discontent at the proceedings of the Government. This gentleman, I am inclined to think, is of opinion that his services at New-Orleans have not been sufficiently rewarded, and I view him as very inimical to the present Administration. From the first period of my arrival to the present day, Mr. Clark (in conjunction with one or perhaps two other persons) have made great exertions to injure me here, and I believe at the Seat of Government; I have good reason to think that intrigues the most ungenerous have been practiced, and representations the most uncandid have been made against me. My talents have been questioned, because I would not be influenced by the Councils of men in whose judgment or integrity I place no confidence; and my firmness doubted, because I would not act the tyrant.
In another letter to Madison later the same year, “Claiborne speculated on possible ulterior motives behind the activities of Clark and his ally, Edward Livingston. While he hoped that his political opponents' actions were based on "pure motives" and "love of political freedom," Claiborne felt that "some interested motive (which time will evince) is the secret spring to all their actions...."
Also to Madison:
I deem it my duty to assure you, that Mr. Clark is an Enemy to the Government of the United States. He is particularly intimate with Moralis [Juan Ventura Morales, Intendant of the Spanish province of West Florida]; largely concerned in the Florida purchase & in my opinion decidedly in the Spanish Interest.
Claiborne again, this time to Thomas Jefferson:
If there be any serious disaffection to the American Government in this territory, it may, in a great measure, be attributed to the Intrigues of a few designing, discontented, restless men. Of this number is Mr. Daniel Clark who will, most unquestionably say much and do much with a view to my injury on his arrival at the seat of Government....
Claiborne did eventually concede that he did not believed Daniel Clark to have been involved in the Burr conspiracy nor conspiring with Spain, despite his (understandable) personal dislike for the man.
Daniel Clark exposed General James Wilkinson as a spy for Spain and a participant in the Aaron Burr conspiracy decades before anyone else recognized Wilkinson as such.
It was widely suspected during his lifetime that General James Wilkinson was spying for Spain and involved in Aaron Burr’s treasonous plots; however, during that period in New Orleans, it was common for just about anybody with some influence to be at some time or another accused of working for a hostile foreign power. Louisiana was populated by people who very recently were Spanish and French citizens, and their new Anglo-American rules were paranoid.
Wilkinson, a one-time business partner of Daniel Clark and his uncle, was, indeed, working for Spain, and he was involved with the Burr conspiracy, but these facts were not proven until the 1850s. Daniel Clark, however, wrote and published a whole book-length dissertation on just that topic—in 1809.
The full title of said book is “Proofs of the Corruption of General James Wilkinson, and of His Connexion with Aaron Burr, with a Full Refutation of His Slanderous Allegations in Relation to the Character of the Principal Witness Against Him.” The verbosity of that title tells you exactly how reading the book feels; Clark goes on and on (and on, and on…), writing in seemingly interminable sentences and causing me to wonder why he could not have paid for a few hours of an editor’s time. 😂 This book and a long-running series of warring articles published at the time in newspapers supportive of either Clark or Wilkinson’s side survive to show us the depth of their animosity towards each other. But history did prove Daniel right, and I’m sure he’d be delighted to know that the Wikipedia entry for Daniel Clark Jr. notes that “subsequent historians have validated his claims” regarding James Wilkinson.
If you didn’t notice the Latin inscription and English translation of the same on the title page of that book, I would like to draw your attention to it.
“Justice, tho’ slow, is sure: vengeance o’ertakes the swiftest villain’s guilt.”
Clark certainly had a flair for the dramatic and a strong conviction of his own moral righteousness (or, perhaps, his ability to convince the world of his righteousness), at least in this particular matter. But he definitely seems like the kind of guy who would filibuster anyone who disagreed with him into submission by talking in circles for hours until the other party gave up just to make it stop. 😂
For Wilkinson’s part, he had this to say about Clark and his partnership with John Randolph in Wilkinson’s memoirs published a few years after Clark’s death:
[Randolph found] in Mr. Daniel Clark, of New Orleans . . . a congenial spirit . . . distinguished for political depravity and moral turpitude. This gentleman who has always been my professed friend and obsequious servant, as his correspondence will testify, was suddenly converted into a remorseless enemy, and the world remains to be informed of the causes of this sudden revolution in the conduct of Mr. Clark.
Wilkinson’s assertions there kind of aged like milk. I don’t doubt that Clark may have been a man of “political depravity and moral turpitude”, but somebody should have told Wilkinson about the old adage about throwing stones in glass houses… Wilkinson’s memoirs include lots of transcribed depositions related to the accusations leveled against him in his lifetime. One of these is by George Mather, a judge.
I believe I have known Daniel Clark esq., since 1784, being about the time he arrived in Louisiana; 26 on the said Daniel Clark's first arrival in this country, and for several years after, he was considered an honest, industrious young man; but from 1792–93 or 94, his general character for veracity, probity, and honour, has been bad; He is known to possess a spirit vindictively malignant, and great animosity towards those he dislikes, and he possesses a very slanderous tongue; his politics have been professedly French, Spanish, and American in turn.
Much like our current president with his shifting takes on various hot-button political issues throughout his decades in the public eye depending on which view he judges will benefit him the most at this moment, I’m not sure Clark’s politics were ever “for” anyone in particular, other than Daniel Clark himself. He was certainly a capable political fighter when he felt he had something to prove, but I don’t see much evidence of nobler motivations than the pursuit of money, power, and social status behind his public actions and words. I’m sure Daniel Clark would have made great television, too, but I’m nevertheless glad he was never put in charge of the country.
Daniel Clark may have been on the Laffite pirates’ payroll, despite having worked as a U. S. consular official.
So, this is not proven, but it’s also not just my opinion. Daniel comes up frequently in discussions of the Laffites and their associates, and he is often noted as having been particularly well-placed to assist in (and profit from) the smuggling operations at Barataria.
Although Daniel was never made territorial governor, he did serve as U.S. consul in New Orleans during the Spanish regime, first without authority from anyone and later with actual authority from Jefferson. In this capacity, Daniel was involved in efforts to limit the activities of the privateers disrupting trade in the Gulf. The Laffites were not really active in the area until a few years after the U. S. acquired the territory; if Clark worked with them, he must have given up on his idea of protecting his commercial interests by stopping the illicit trade and instead decided “if you can’t beat’em, join’em!”
Daniel’s primary residence was at a property on Bayou St. John, located about where the blue pin is on this map. The water on the top of the image is Lake Pontchartrain; the Mississippi River is to the south out of frame.
Bayou St. John is only used for transport by kayakers and paddle boarders these days, but it used to be a navigable waterway. In fact, Bayou St. John was one of the “back doors” into and out of New Orleans used by those who wanted to avoid going through the customs officers and paying legally required duties... like the Laffites. Daniel’s home was on Bayou St. John, and he apparently had a warehouse there as well. This convenient connection is one source of suspicion regarding Daniel’s relationship to the pirates at Barataria. Another is Daniel’s close friendships with men like Edward Livingston; Livingston was the strongest advocate for the famous offer of amnesty in exchange for military service given to the pirates during the War of 1812. But actually, if we consider all of the various routes known to have been used by the Baratarians to discreetly pass to and from the city, and then you consider where Daniel Clark owned property, it’s really hard not to start to side eye Clark a bit.
Daniel was the owner of the “Houmas tract”, a large piece of land that was “purchased” from the indigenous tribe known as the Houma. This property is located in present-day Ascension Parish where the yellow pin is placed.
Note the proximity to Donaldsonville and the intersection of the Mississippi and Bayou Lafourche. Bayou Lafourche was another “back door” route. Instead of going straight up the Mississippi past the customs officers at the Balize, one could instead go up Bayou Lafourche to the Mississippi then float down to New Orleans and appear to have come from within the United States rather than from abroad.
Daniel also owned property south of New Orleans in Plaquemines and St. Bernard as shown above; on the Mississippi near Pointe-a-la-Hache; and further down the bayou in the parish then known as “Lafourche Interior”. His first cousins lived next door to my people on Bayou Terrebonne. He also owned property in the Attakapas region. Daniel Clark didn’t just own one convenient smuggling route; he probably owned most of them during the time the Laffites were most active. And he had as much reason as anybody at that time to want to find a way to get around the onerous Non-Intercourse and Embargo acts, which limited his profits by limiting trade with other nations.
Daniel Clark’s succession case to this day holds the record for the longest-running litigation in U.S. history.
So obviously, Daniel Clark had a lot of estate to administer, and the beneficiary of said estate was on track to become very rich overnight. He definitely did write at least one will, in which he left everything to his mother, Mary Clark, of Germantown, Pennsylvania. He mentioned no descendants in this very brief directive.
Daniel, however, had at least two “natural” children he recognized as such in his personal life, if not publicly or in any official capacity. His two daughters, Myra and Caroline, were born to a woman named Zulime Carriere. According to Myra, she never knew who her father was until several decades after his death, at which time she became hellbent on receiving the entire estate as her father’s “sole and legitimate heir”. She was neither sole nor legitimate, as Daniel and Zulime never married, and in fact, she was likely not even eligible to legally marry him because she wasn’t legally divorced from her first husband, who was still alive. And, of course, the existence of her sister, Caroline, was ever a thorn in her side in her quest for recognition as Clark’s only child. Why she would not accept Caroline’s well-documented, well-proven identity as Clark’s natural daughter is unclear to me, but luckily for Myra, Caroline died quite young, long before the end of the litigation.
Voluminous court records survive documenting Myra’s many legal cases, over a thousand pages. These documents are full of juicy tidbits, lies, and exaggerations all around. Myra eventually, finally, won her case, but by that time she was old and had so much legal debt built up over 70+ years of fighting in court that she was entitled to only a fraction of the estate’s original value. In any case, she didn’t live long after that.
Although Myra technically won and is often hailed as a woman who fought the system and finally won what she was rightfully due, my personal opinion after reading way more of the thousand plus pages of documentation than is reasonable is that Myra was less hero, more power-hungry grifter. In other words, she was a “chip off the old block”. The contortions of facts that she and her legal team came up with to explain Zulime’s shadowy first marriage, the timing of the births of her daughters, and the failure of anyone to ever find any evidence of Clark’s having been legally married and much to suggest he had not been, would surely have made her father proud. Both of them were clearly capable of out-lasting their opponents in arguments by sheer stamina and force of will, even if they had to go to extreme lengths, and even if the benefit or wiseness of doing so seemed questionable to everyone else.
Why did Myra deny Caroline’s existence as an heir with equal standing as herself, being also the natural daughter of Clark and Zulime Carriere? She could not have been unaware. I presume that Zulime eventually went along with whatever Myra said, as Daniel and Caroline had both died by that point; rewriting Caroline’s history made Myra’s story easier to follow for jurors and Zulime’s less scandalous. But even at the beginning of Myra’s legal battle, when Caroline was alive and filed petitions opposing her sister’s claims, Myra flatly denied Caroline’s rights to anything at all of her father’s estate. Myra married men with money; her first husband, William Whitney, was a nephew of Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin. She did not need the money from Clark’s estate and indeed could not have fought the way she did had she not already had access to a lot of money. Clark’s mother mentioned both Myra and Caroline in her will, leaving 1/4 of her (Mary Clark’s) estate to Caroline, equal to the shares given to her other children and their heirs. (She mentioned that she would have left an equal part to Myra, meaning she would have split that 1/4 with Caroline, but that Myra had already been provided for.) Mary Clark instead left Myra $200 with which to buy a “jewel to remember her by”. I feel like there’s probably more to that story, but we may not ever know what exactly Mary Clark was thinking when she wrote her will.
Daniel Clark, for his part, seems to have always made sure that his daughters and their mother had what they needed. When Zulime got pregnant the first time, he shipped her off to Philadelphia (along with a slave, who promptly caused issues for Clark’s friend who was assisting Zulime in Philadelphia while Clark was elsewhere; it was illegal for her to bring a slave with her up there because at the time Louisiana was in a different country, and you couldn’t just import foreign slaves anywhere in America by then). Zulime was near Clark’s family, knew them and was known of by them, and presumably had their support during her pregnancy and her daughters’ infancies. Clark visited his daughters when he came to town when they were small and spoke fondly of them to his close friends, although sometimes only in code or by vague allusions. He didn’t want to leave written evidence of anything, ever.
At one point it was announced in the newspapers that Daniel had gotten engaged to a particular woman. This did not pan out, but the fact that it happened is strong evidence that he and Zulime Carriere never married, as Daniel Clark was clearly not the type to put himself at risk of getting caught in bigamy.
During the Gaines trials, multiple residents of New Orleans who had known Daniel Clark socially, women and men, testified in court to well-known rumors that Clark was impotent. A sample from the case testimony:
It’s certainly an interesting reputation, to be known as someone who had many mistresses but was impotent. What exactly did they mean by “impotent”? My guess is that Daniel must have had a few too many awkward drunken or nervous encounters with his various mistresses, and they started talking amongst themselves. But if he was truly impotent, not capable of fathering children, it would raise all kinds of interesting interpretations of his situation with his daughters. If he thought he could not have kids, but really wanted them, perhaps he considered them his only chance at fatherhood, despite not being around full time. Perhaps he could have been easily manipulated by a pregnant mistress preying on his insecurities and fears. Perhaps, even, he had a bunch of “mistresses” around him all the time to cover up the fact that he was gay. Wild characters invite wild speculation, forgive me for wondering. 😅 But why else would “the reason of his being so much with them was that he was impotent”? Surely they didn’t mean his logic was that because he could not get women pregnant, he felt he could do whatever he wanted so had many women? Surely, he’d have learned that was not the case the first time he got Zulime pregnant, at least… he must have believed these were his daughters.
I will leave you with my most recent Daniel Clark find that sent me down this deep, deep rabbit hole yet again: the epitaph on his grave. It’s in Latin, but this is the translation:
"Here lies Daniel Clark St. Louis #1
Born in Sligo, Ireland, a resident of Louisiana. While this city was under Spanish rule, he was Consul of the United States. Because of his outstanding virtues, he was later appointed by unanimous vote of the people as the first delegate to the American Congress for the Orleans Territory. He spent his vast, honestly acquired wealth to help those in need, yet through his generosity became richer. He died, mourned by all good people, on August 16, A.D. 1813.
A friend erected this monument to his friend. Caused to be rebuilt in 1854 by his friend Richard Relf. Died Aug 16, 1813."
This is so funny to me. Richard Relf was one of the two close friends Clark named executors of his estate. He had to deal with Clark’s legal bullshit for literally the rest of his life, decades on end. When Relf died, his kids renounced the succession, presumably because their dad was in debt. But just a short time before his own death, Relf went to the trouble of erecting this monument to Daniel Clark and filling it with flattering nonsense in a language few in New Orleans would have much familiarity with to take notice of the creative liberties he took regarding Clark’s “outstanding virtues” and reputation amongst “all good people”. A contemporary of Daniel Clark once described him as a “mole-like individual” and that was representative of how people spoke of Daniel Clark most of the time, but hey, apparently the man had a true friend in Richard Relf, if no one else. Or perhaps there’s some hidden scheme related to the tomb itself and its true intended purpose and meaning… it would really kind of be on brand. There was testimony given in court that implicated Relf in various schemes to gain control of Daniel’s estate; while not well-supported with evidence as far as I have seen, guilt could have been a motivator for Relf at the end of his life if he was indeed involved in any kind of shenanigans related to Daniel’s death and succession.
Daniel died when he was only about 46 years old. Some of the testimony from the Gaines cases seems to heavily imply that Clark was in bad financial shape in the time immediately before his death; his illness was brief, but the vagueness of that illness in the context of extreme levels of detail about everything surrounding Clark’s death makes me wonder if Daniel Clark wasn’t suffering from a psychiatric illness. One witness recounts seeing Daniel the day he died and asking him how he felt; Daniel said he felt very badly, but the witness doesn’t mention him looking bad or having any particular symptoms. Then he comes back later that day to find all the windows open and Richard Relf in Daniel’s house, crying because Daniel was dead.
Suffice it to say, I still have lots of questions, but this post is already really long. 🙃
Nice job of fleshing out the character and personality.
Wow, what a character! Really enjoyed reading about him.