Oct 02, 2012 - Sale 2287

Sale 2287 - Lot 367

Price Realized: $ 594
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
"20 YEARS WILL MAKE A GREAT PLACE OF BUFFALO" (NEW YORK.) Archive of Buffalo's Clark-Burwell family. Approximately 194 items (0.2 linear feet), various sizes and typical condition for the period: 79 letters to or from John Whipple Clark, 1822-67; 72 letters to Bryant and Ann (Clark) Burwell, 1817-51; 28 letters to and from various Burwell children, 1845-68; 14 pages of Clark and Whipple genealogical notes; and an undated medical lecture, "The Human Eye." Vp, 1817-68, bulk 1824-49
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John Whipple Clark (1799-1872) was a physician and entrepreneur who settled in Buffalo in 1823. He grew prosperous until losing his fortune in the Panic of 1837. He never married. His brother-in-law Bryant Burwell (1796-1861) was also a Buffalo physician, settling in 1824.
Frequent letters between Burwell and Clark shed light on life in Buffalo during the Erie Canal boom. Burwell complained about his medical partner Dr. Chapin: "He at one time, when a little drunk, as is often the case of late, absolutely forbid me ever to visit his patients, & swore with many oaths that he would not visit mine, even to save their lives" (21 October 1828). Clark described his hopes for his adopted town: "20 years will make a great place of Buffalo. . . . The land which I am engaged in will be worth a million" (15 August 1828). Clark also describes meeting President John Quincy Adams at Providence, RI: "He is a very plain, common sense, farmer & statesman sort of a man" (18 September 1828). See History of the City of Buffalo, pages II:10-12 for more on Clark and Burwell.