Dr. Charles B. Clark preached
the sermon at the funeral of Martha Jane Canary, also known as Martha Jane
Burke or Calamity Jane, at the Deadwood Methodist Church on Aug. 4, 1903.
Calamity Jane had died at nearby Terry on Aug. 1.
Clark was pastor of
the church. According to “Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend” by James D.
McLaird, Clark emphasized Calamity Jane’s humanitarian acts during Deadwood’s
early years in the eulogy. “Echoing popular sentiment, Clark asked, ‘How often
amid the snows of winter did this woman find her way to the lonely cabin of the
miner’ to help one suffering from illness?”
The minister’s son
and namesake, poet Charles Badger Clark, often lamented that his father was the
person to preside over Calamity Jane’s funeral.
“My father’s deeds of
mercy are unnumbered, but such is the irony of human nature, he’ll be
remembered longest, because he buried Calamity Jane,” Badger Clark was quoted
as saying in articles by Helen F. Morganti.
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| Dr. Charles B. Clark |
The elder Clark did,
indeed, do much more than bury the notorious woman of the West. In his 57 years
as a minister, the Rev. C.B. Clark built four churches and took more than 2,000
people into the church, most of them being converts under his preaching.
“The primary job of a
preacher in those days was to preach and Dr. Clark could preach. His sermons
were to the point and well thought out,” wrote Morganti.
In Clark’s obituary in
the “Journal of Dakota Conference,” an unnamed minister is quoted as saying, “I
think that all who heard him speak felt as I did --- that I was ashamed of
every mean thing I had ever thought or done and wanted to do better. Dr. Clark
loved men as he loved God; this made him a believer in them and a rare friend
and sympathizer. In all the thirty-five years I was acquainted with him, I
never heard him say an unkind thing of friend or foe.”
Badger Clark
described his father as “a man of above middle height, had a full black beard
which gave him a practical aspect but which was offset by kindly crinkles
around his eyes. He wore the true badge of professional men of those days, the
Prince Albert coat and topped the costume with a Stetson hat, always cocked
slightly to the right.”
The Rev. C.B. Clark
also possessed a mellow bass voice, a fluent command of English and a sunny
temperament.
Clark was born around 1840 in Sauquoit, N.Y. The family moved west in 1857,
finally settling at Mount Pleasant, Iowa. He attended Iowa Wesleyan University,
leaving to enlist in the 25th Iowa Infantry in 1862, fighting for the Union
Army in the American Civil War. The private received a shell wound to his head
at the battle of Arkansas Post in 1863 and was discharged from the service.
His injury resulted
in the total loss of hearing in his right ear. He returned to Iowa, resumed his
studies, was ordained as a Methodist minister and became a circuit-riding
minister in Iowa. A patriotic man, Clark was active in the Grand Army of the
Republic, serving as president of the South Dakota department of that
organization for a year.
The work and outdoor
life restored Clark’s strength, and he developed into an able and popular
preacher, occupying some of the best pulpits in the Iowa conference.
Overwork took a toll
on him, and, as Badger Clark put it, “doctors told him that he could remain a
citizen of this world only if he dropped preaching and all the nerve-straining
activities of his profession and took up outdoor work, not too heavy, for the rest
of his life.”
The family moved to
Dakota Territory in 1883 and homesteaded four miles south of Plankinton.
The minister’s health
improved and he returned to his first love of preaching. He was appointed to
the Methodist pastorate at Mitchell. He later became district superintendent at
Mitchell and pastor at Huron. He was one of the original promoters of Dakota
Wesleyan University, which conferred upon him an honorary doctor of divinity
degree in 1892.
Clark accepted a
transfer to Deadwood in 1898, as the health of his wife, Mary Ellen, was
declining due to tuberculosis and he thought the change in altitude would
benefit her. However, his wife died that October.
Clark married Rachel
Anna Morris three years later. He closed his active ministry as chaplain at
Battle Mountain Sanitarium in Hot Springs. He died in Hot Springs on June 10,
1921, and was buried in Graceland Cemetery in Mitchell.
This moment in South Dakota history is provided by the South Dakota
Historical Society Foundation, the nonprofit fundraising partner of the South
Dakota State Historical Society at the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre. Find
us on the web at www.sdhsf.org. Contact us at info@sdhsf.org to submit a story idea.
