Fonds - Curry-Clark family fonds

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Curry-Clark family fonds

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  • Textual record
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  • 1775-[before 1980] predominant [before 1900] (Creation)
    Creator
    Curry-Clark family

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Physical description

26 cm of textual records and graphic material

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(18th to 20th centuries)

Biographical history

The Curry family (sometimes spelled Currie) came from Ireland. James Curry was born in Moville, Ireland and his wife Ann Morrow in County Down. The couple moved to Chinguacousy on Lot 12, Concession 6 in 1817. A year later, James Curry’s father (also James Curry) and mother joined them.

The family included children Martha, Mary, Jane (who married John Clark), John, Samuel, and Annie. James Curry built and ran a sawmill on the Credit River at Norval. The Curries were Presbyterians.

The Clark (sometimes spelled Clarke) family originated in Paisley, Scotland. Hugh Clark (1784-1863, born in Paisley) and his wife Jane (‘Jean’) Gilchrist (1783-1874) briefly lived in Ireland with three children (Margaret, John, and James) before joining Clark relatives in New York in 1821 where another daughter, Jane, was born. In 1822 they moved to York in Ontario, and in 1823 bought 200 acres in Chinguacousy on Lot 16, Concession 4. Another son, Hugh, was born in Chinguacousy.

Hugh Clark and his sons (especially Hugh and John) established reputations for raising and showing fine livestock including horses and dairy cattle. Hugh Clark (1830-1909) was particularly known for introducing Jersey dairy cattle to Ontario and was consulted on his experience with the breed. He also reputedly was the first to raise alfalfa as a crop in Peel County. He married twice: first to Sarah Oliver (abt 1842-1882) and second to Rachel King (1850-1907).

John Clark (1818-1891) married Jane Curry (1826-1896) and their children included Hugh Herbert Clark (1861-1937) and Frederick Clark. Ida Curry Clark (1902-1979) was the daughter of Hugh Herbert Clark and Charlotte Ford. She married Alexander McKinney.

Custodial history

Records were donated to the archives by C. Ruth Humphreys (nee McKinney), daughter of Ida Curry Clark and granddaughter of Hugh Herbert Clark. Records appear to have been gathered into a body by Ida Curry Clark, if not by her parents.

Scope and content

Fonds consists of records created or collected by two families related by marriage, the Clarks and Curries of Chinguacousy Township. Fonds includes correspondence, legal and land records, accounting ledgers, petitions to township councils, ephemera, copying and penmanship exercises, and photographs. Records largely relate to domestic affairs (including farming and exchanging of goods) and legal matters (especially land transactions and the settling of estates).

Records from both the Curry and Clark branches of the family were inherited by an ancestor, Ida Curry Clark. An appreciable part of the records on both sides date from before the intermarriage of the two families (when John Clark married Jane Curry). Because the records can readily be associated with one or another of the two branches, the fonds has been arranged into two series as follows:

Series 1: Curry family records
Series 2: Clark family records

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Some records are fragile.

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