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Here is a letter from her husband, Lemuel Clark, to Sophia's father, Daniel Langton regarding Sophia's unfortunate death:
Note: From: Lemuel Clark
To: Daniel Langton
Near Vincennes
Indiana State
Knox County
Morgan County July 10, 1824
Dear Father-
I know not how to begin this letter which I am about to write....
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Here is a letter from her husband, Lemuel Clark, to Sophia's father, Daniel Langton regarding Sophia's unfortunate death:
Note: From: Lemuel Clark
To: Daniel Langton
Near Vincennes
Indiana State
Knox County
Morgan County July 10, 1824
Dear Father-
I know not how to begin this letter which I am about to write. But as sorrowful as the task is I must inform you of the death of my wife Sophia. She died about 2 weeks after our arrival in Morgan. The day but one before she died she was as well as usual but it being very warm, she complained very much of the hear and pulled off some of the clothes she had been accustomed to wearing. The next day the weather changed again and turned cool and rained but she did not think to put on her usual dress. Toward evening she began to complain of feiiling unwell and inclined to puke. In the night she was taken with a very dad dysentary with caused her to be up and down all night. at times she inclined to puke she began to complain of being sore all over her legs and arms and in pain all over. In the moriing I asked her if she did not think that her pains were the beginning of labor as she was expecting to be put to bed shortly. She said perhaps it was but she didn't want mr to send for a doctor. I immediately inquired for some woman who _ __ý(assist)ý_ _ in such cases and I sent immediately after one. It was ten or eleven o'clock when she got there. She said Sophia had taken cold and wanted sweating, but she apprehended no danger. She said she thought she ought to be bled, that she thought she could not be put to bed before she was. I sent immediately for a doctor who lived about two miles off but before he got these she swooned _ _ _ _ and died without a struggle. But a few moments before she died I asked her if she had any regular pains she said she had not. She said she felt better than she did the day before. She died about one o'clock, less than twenty-four hours after she began to coplain of being unwell. It was the opinion of the doctor that the child died a day or two before and was the cause of her death. But the ways of the Lord are unsearchable and we know not what means he is preparing to take us out of this world and yet we are apt to ascribe such events to some visible cause, or neglect. It appeared to me for several days if Sophia had been bled in time that it might have been the means of saving her life. It appeared that she had had for a long time indications of a too great pressure of blodd for she had for a long time a hacking cough at times and a continual shortness of breath. She had a very large _ _ _ _ for better than a year before she set out her journey from Carolina whcih went away on her journey. She thought that it was a benefit to her health to travel. she had one faint turn on the way. She fainted away and fell her whole length, which was another symptom of too great pressure of blood in the system. But it was hidden from us and was never thought of by either of us until mentioned by the woman who was sent for. She had never been bled in her life. She had been very
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anxious for a long time to leave Carolina and move into Ohio, but I was unable to settle my business so as to see a way opened until to leave there this spring. Nor was I able to bring it to a final close before I left there. I persuaded her to stay one year more but she insisted on going on to our land this spring. She said she should not live another summer in Carolina. The heat overcame her so much and she could not bear to leave her children in a slave country. It appears she was only to live to see them removed into a free state. She was very much pleased with this coutry and like my land better than she expected. If she had not been in a family way I should have come out to see you before I had set down on my farm. But her situation would not admit of it. She was so anxious to get on to our land that she could not be persuaded to stay but a very short time with any of her relations. We spent only about ten days in Conn. We went to see Uncle Samuel and Uncle Seth, Uncle Gad and Uncle Jarvis Root and Call on Aunt Sophia who were all well and when we got here she was not contented until she went onto my land. I had thought to have spent a few days among my relations and to have looked around and perhaps to have purchased some small improvements with a comfortable house on it but it was her desire that I should go on to my land and get some boards and put up a shelter until we could build. I did according to her request which now appears to be a matter of regret for it some times appears that if she had been more comfortably situated it might have been better for her but we were in hopes to have got a house built so that we could get into it before she was put to bed. She was persuaded to stay with one of the neighbors who lived about a mile from my land, which was the nearest house, until I got my house done. She went and stayed two nights and concluded she had rather stay in the little cabin we had put up to being so inconvenient to go so far backward and forward to see to my business and she wanted to be there to see to planting her garden and other things which she wanted to have fixed in her mind. It appears if she could have lived to be comfortably situated in her own habitation it would have relieved me of a great burden of mind but the only remaining consolation is that I think that I have full reason to hope that my loss is her gain, that she has left this world of trial and affliction for an everlasting rest in Christ Jesus, it therefore becomes us to be resigned to the will of God and mourn not as those who have no hope. It was Sophia's request before we left Carolina that if she should die and leave the children that I should carry Vesta and let her live with Phoebe but my situation is such at present that it is very inconvenient to leave my business. I had engaged lumber for my house and barn before my wife died and the workmen had almost got my house framed. I had likewise engaged to have my land fenced which has since been finished. I had likewise agreed to have about thirty acres put in order for wheat this summer and therefore under the necessity to stay through the summer. If I was not bound by these contracts I should take my children and make you a visit at least this summer for all the prospects of this world are cut off in a moment. I now board about a mile
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from my land with my children. Vesta goes to school but what I shall do when I get my house done I know not. If some of my connections lived near that could come and live with me so that I can keep my children together and not separate them it appears that it would be a relief to my mind. If my mother did not live at so great a distance she would probably live with me. But the distance is so great and she so far advanced in years that it is hardly probably that she could to come into this country unless my brother and family should move. We wrote you about the time of our leaving Carolina. I hope you will write me as soon as you receive this and you will oblige your afflicted son. And may the Lord support us all under our afflictions and prepare us to follow at his call.
/s/ Lemuel Clark
Here is Lemuel's obituary:
Note: Rock Creek, Dec. 28, 1882
Passed from earth life, Lemuel Clark, Dec. 17th, 1882, nearly 97 years old. Began his earth life Feb. 10th, 1780 in Southington, Hartford county, Conn., came to Morgan, Ashtabula county, April 1808, having 400 acres of land here; returned to Connecticut in the fall of this year; married Sophia Langton at East Haven, Dec. 25th, 1808, and on the same day left for Virginia, after some time decided on a place to locate on the bank of the Tar river, North Carolina, to which place he moved his wife in the fall of 1811. He carried on business south fifteen years; moved to Morgan in the summer of 1824. Soon after arriving here his wife suddenly died, leaving him with his son Henry L. aged 10, and his daughter, Vesta O., aged 7 years to look after. Dec. 25th 1825, married Also Loomis, of New Lyme; she died April 9th 1874.
Since the above date, he has been cared for by his daughter's family, until the first of last july; when he was taken to his son Henry's and remained there until his demise. His life has been a laborious one; has spent his days with honor and usefulness, rarely excelled for honesty and uprightness, and few equals. This was a wilderness when he came here in 1824, and in 1825 he had 72 acres of woods chopped and cleared, 50 of which sowed to wheat; built a house and two 30x40 barns; soon had a large farm stocked with cattle, horses and sheep ---some raised, some bought and raised and sold to drovers or driven away to market by himself; a large dairy of cows for cheese making etc. Some purchases and some exchanges enabled him to mass together, in the southeast corner of the township near 1300 acres of land, including some adjoining in Rome. The Ashtabula and New Lishon railroad project, induced him to subscribe heavily --- by the importunities of solicitors, if the company would take his lands --- this was agreed to at $25 per acre. This amounted to $25,000; for this he received $19,000 of stock and 6,000 of bonds of the Co., interest at 8 per cent, semiannually; bonds to be paid in eight years. The stock was a total loss --- the bond was paid in land. He was quite sanguine in the importance of the spread of the Bible, and visited every township in the county, soliciting Bible societies in each; his expenses and time gratuitous he was not a member of any church, but gave for the support of Methodist and Presbyterian churches in this place. A more worthy example of patience and evenness of temper, it would be hard to find. He lived with us over 8 years, the last of his life an dnot a word of fault finding escaped his lips. Suspicion and censoriousness, applied to others, apparently, was not part of his moral character, contrasting largely with that of many others.
Sophia Langton [Mrs. Lemuel Clark] with her husband and children, Henry and Vesta, came from North Carolina in 1814. The mother being in delicate health, the hardships of the journey and a severe cold contracted by exposure, as the wagon they came in was their only shelter, she only lived about two weeks after their arrival.
Mr. Clark and his children were alone several hours with the dead mother, he fearing to leave them to go for assistance on account of the wolves. It is supposed that Deborah Chapman was the first to go to his relief, as she was the nearest neighbor. In after years the son, Henry, became a large land holder and a prominent citizen, married Lucy Moses, and the daughter, Vesta, became the wife of Alonzo Moses. The children of these two families are among the prominent citizens of Rock Creek. |
