| Main entry | Clarke, Mrs. W. N. (Emily) |
|---|
| Birth place | Lackawanna (Scranton), Waverly, Pennsylvania, USA |
|---|
| Birth date | 1 or 29 January 1845 |
|---|
| Death date | After 1920 |
|---|
| Identifier | 0465 |
|---|
| Birth name | Emily Louisa Smith |
|---|
| Married name | Clarke |
|---|
| Marital status | married |
|---|
| Religious affiliation | Baptist |
|---|
| Biography | Emily Louisa Smith (1845-) was born in Lackawanna, Pennsylvania (now Scranton), and grew up on her family homestead—365 acres of valuable coal land that provided her father, farmer and iron founder Erastus Smith (1807-1877), with income, and her mother, Mary Matilda Howard (1808-1865), with plenty of space to raise somewhere between eight and eleven children. Most details about Emily's adult life must be obtained through information about her prominent husband, William Newton Clarke (1841-1912). He was an American Baptist minister who was invited in 1880 to preach in Montreal, where the family relocated that same year. After Dr. Clarke was invited to teach at the Toronto Baptist College in the fall of 1883, the Clarkes then moved to Toronto until 1887. They remained in Toronto until 1887, when William decided to return to Hamilton, New York. While in Canada, Mrs. Clarke published a single work, THE NEW SONG, AND OTHER POEMS (1883). After she returned to the United States, she also published a biography of her husband in 1916. |
|---|
| Residences | Lackawanna, Pennsylvania (1845, 1860); Newton, Massachusetts (1870); Montreal (1880-1883); Toronto (1883-1887); Hamilton, New York (1900, 1910, 1920) |
|---|
| Geographic regions | USA; Quebec; Ontario |
|---|
| Primary genres | poetry; non-fiction (biography) |
|---|
| Books | THE NEW SONG, AND OTHER POEMS (1883); WILLIAM NEWTON CLARKE: A BIOGRAPHY (1916) |
|---|
| Other publications | Anthologized in: Harrison, CANADIAN BIRTHDAY BOOK (1887) |
|---|
| Father's name | Erastus Smith |
|---|
| Life dates of father | 8 April 1807, Pennsylvania - 27 July 1877, Scranton, Pennsylvania; m. 1829 |
|---|
| Father's note | farmer; iron founder (made plows, stoves, household utensils) |
|---|
| Mother's name | Mary Matilda Howard |
|---|
| Life dates of mother | 9 October 1808, Columbus, New York - 26 September 1865, Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; m. 1829 |
|---|
| Spouse 1 | William Newton Clarke, DD |
|---|
| Life dates of spouse 1 | 2 December 1841, Cozenovia, New York - 14 January 1912, Hamilton, New York |
|---|
| Spouse 1 note | Prominent American theologian, Baptist minister and teacher in Quebec and Ontario; Colgate University Professor |
|---|
| Marriage 1 date | 1 September 1869 |
|---|
| Marriage 1 place | Newton Centre, Massachusetts |
|---|
| Biographical references | Brackney, "William Newton Clarke: A Canadian-American Cross Cultural Experience," MCMASTER JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY 3.2 (Spring 1993): 62-81; Howard, HISTORY OF ISAAC HOWARD OF FOSTER, RHODE ISLAND, AND HIS DESCENDANTS WHO HAVE BORNE THE NAME OF HOWARD (1901); 1860 United States Federal Census; 1870 United States Federal Census; 1900 United States Federal Census; 1910 United States Federal Census; 1920 United States Federal Census |
|---|
| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), p. 43; Amicus (National Library of Canada) |
|---|
| Research references | complete |
|---|
| Image credits | Line drawing by Una Vernelli (Vancouver, British Columbia). |
|---|
| Copyright | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Please cite Canada's Early Women Writers. SFU Library Digital Collections. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1980-2014. |
|---|