Histories of Niagara Falls concentrate on the villages of Manchester, Suspension Bridge and LaSalle, but tiny Clarksville is given short shrift, even though it was in the heart of the consolidation area. Perhaps it is often overlooked because Clarksville never made it to the official status of village, but remained a hamlet until it was absorbed by Niagara Falls. Nomenclature also changed over the years, adding to the confusion.
Niagara Falls was first called the Village of Manchester. Suspension Bridge was called variously Bellevue and Niagara City. But good old Clarksville, located between the two behemoth metropolitan areas, was always known as Clarksville. However, the name faded into history when Suspension Bridge and Niagara Falls merged into a city, taking in Clarksville. LaSalle was later added on.
According to local historian and newspaper editor Orrin E. Dunlap, the boundaries of Clarksville were the Niagara River gorge on the west, the alley between Elmwood and Spruce avenues on the south, the alley between 19th and 20th streets on the east, and the north side of Ashland Avenue on the north. In those days, however, Ashland was Ash Street and Elmwood was Elm Street.
Clarksville was thus sandwiched between Suspension Bridge and Niagara Falls.
This hamlet was named after prominent entrepreneur Henry Wells Clark, who came to Niagara Falls from Rochester, where he was employed in a paper mill. He was born in Pittsfield, Mass., on Oct. 9, 1797, and learned the papermaking business in Dalton, Mass.
He came to Niagara Falls to take advantage of the water power and get into the papermaking business. A strange twist of fate, unfortunate for another papermaker named Jesse Symonds, provided Clark with a great opportunity. Symonds came to Niagara Falls in 1823, a short time before Clark arrived, and began building a paper mill on the mainland near Goat Island. However, Symonds suffered a strange malady for those days and disappeared from his home on June 17, 1823, when he left to visit a doctor. The Niagara Sentinel newspaper of Lewiston wrote, "Mr. Jesse Symonds, a very respectable and enterprising inhabitant of this village (Manchester) had for some days been afflicted with ill health and for some nights had enjoyed little or no sleep. He last evening between the hours of seven and eight left his house for the purpose of calling upon the physician of this place to obtain some composing medicine."
When he didn't return home, a search was instituted, and his hat and coat "were discovered upon a log which projected into the river a few rods above the pitch of the falls. The presumption is that in a fit of delirium he had thrown himself into the river and in a few seconds ere life could be extinct his body was precipitated down the falls."
Clark took advantage of this unfortunate circumstance by renting the paper mill started by Symonds, completing the construction and beginning a prosperous business. Three years later, Clark joined with the prominent Porter family in building a new and larger paper mill on Porter property on Bath Island, later called Green Island, near Goat Island.
Clark did well in his papermaking venture and bought up much land in the center of the city where he had his home on the northeast corner of Main and Elmwood. Everyone began calling this little hamlet Clarksville.
Clark was elected supervisor of the Town of Niagara, which included the whole area at that time, and served from 1827 to 1830, and was elected again in 1836, 1838 and 1861. He also served as president of the Village of Niagara Falls in the 1860s and then became prominent in the railroad business.
Clark was held in high regard as railroad agent, a position he held for 40 years. The Niagara City Herald at Suspension Bridge, noting a new railroad engine bore Clark's name, wrote on May 8, 1856, "Mr. Clark has been receiver and superintendent of the depot of the place nearly a quarter of a century and no individual has ever discharged his duties more assiduously and impartially than that gentleman. We feel proud that the company has paid him a compliment so justly his due."
A few days later, on May 14, 1856, the Niagara Falls Times wrote, "Our neighbor at the Bridge pays our townsman H. W. Clark, a well deserved compliment in saying that as receiver and local superintendent of the N.Y.C.R.R at this place 'No individual ever discharged his duties more assiduously and impartially.' He has occupied this position for a long time, a fact of itself complimentary in the highest degree. An engine bearing his name has lately been put on the road."
More about this enterprising resident and the hamlet he founded next time.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 12 2006 |