Mark Twain - descended from the Dalways of Dalway's Bawn?

When I first read 'Tom Sawyer' by Mark Twain as a boy it gripped me like no other book I had ever read. The stories in my other books were very 'English public school' in their setting and dialogue, but Tom Sawyer's world (actually much further away - in Missouri), seemed just like my own. I can still remember the story when Tom couldn't go out to play with his friends on a Saturday because Aunt Polly had told him to whitewash the garden fence first. When his chums called for him, Tom pretended that he would rather paint the fence as he just loved doing it. So his puzzled friends asked to watch. Then, they asked to have a try with the paintbrush, but Tom said he wanted to do it himself. I think his friends ended up paying Tom to let them paint the fence while he sat and watched. This was a rouse I tried out on my own friends one Saturday, and it almost worked, but not quite!

'Mark Twain' was the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), a name he took from the leadsman’s call on the Mississippi river. In 1876 he published "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" followed in 1882 by his story of Tudor England "The Prince and the Pauper". However the popularity of Tom Sawyer had readers demanding more, and in 1885 he wrote "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Life on the Mississippi". Huckleberry Finn has been hailed the first ‘Great American Novel’, a concept meaning a novel which most perfectly represents the spirit of life in the United States at the time of its writing. He wrote more than 30 books and hundreds of short stories and essays.

Apparently, Samuel Langhorne Clemens was of Scotch-Irish descent on both his father's and his mother's side of the family. His mother was Jane Lampton who
married John Marshall Clemens in 1823. Jane Lampton's grandfather was Col. William Casey, an early Kentucky pioneer who, in 1789, established the Casey/Butler Fort. This was the first permanent settlement in what is now Adair County and he settled there with his wife (Jane Montgomery) and about 30 other families. The Casey family had migrated to America from Ulster earlier in the century.


















On his father's side of the family, the Clemens (originally Clements) were also of 'Scotch-Irish' descent, but this time they came from a more aristocratic Ulster background in east Antrim that had an association with an English army tradition before the American Revolution. Samuel Langhorne Clemens' grandfather was a Samuel B. Clemens, the first of Mark Twain's father's family to make an appearance in the historical record in America. The occasion was in October 1797, with his marriage to Pamela Goggin in Virginia.

Here I jump to the Clements (or 'Clemence') family of 'Clements Hill' between Straid and Ballynure. This district is right at the start of the Dalway's Bawn cattle trail, and in an earlier post ("The Rise of John Dalway's Cattle Empire in East Antrim", 10 July 2010) I described how this area around Ballynure - although quite distant from Dalway's Bawn - was a key part of the Dalway land grants from the early 1600s.

I have re-posted the map here, adding in the location of Clements Hill, south-west of Ballynure (click on the map to enlarge).


Every local history book and tourist guide for Ballynure in east Antrim claims Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) as a 'famous son' of the district. Here is a typical entry:

Mark Twain, as he was known to his worldwide readers was christened Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His family roots were on the edge of Ballyclare and the oldest gravetone in the nearby churchyard in Ballynure is his ancestor Elenor Clemens - 1628. A favourite walk in this part of County Antrim is from the Green Road to the Ballynure Road. It is known as the Back Walks and crosses an area called Clements Hill from whose height there were splendid views across the valley of the Six Mile Water. This was the Clemens family home for many years - the 't' being added at a later date. They were an important family and there are records of their contribution to the town of Carrickfergus where some served on the governing bodies. Samuel himself refers to the family living in this County Antrim valley.

These Clements were not ordinary tenant farmers, but they belonged to the same old-established, English landlord class as the Dalways - and indeed they married into the Dalways in the 1600s.
In the old graveyard of Ballynure Parish Church are two large family vaults belonging to the Dobbs family of Castle Dobbs (who by also marrying into the Dalway family, came to be in possession of much of the former Dalway estate at Ballynure). But the oldest gravestone in the burying ground is that of Ellinor Clements, dated 1698. Here is the full inscription (with the Dalway connection highlighted):

Clements
Here lyeth the body of Ellinor,
the wife of Edward Clements of Mvlligan-Hill gent.
and eldest daughter of Alexander Dallvay of Bally Hill Esqr.,
who departed this life
03 Mar 1698 aged 35 years.

The historical connections between Ballynure and Dalway's Bawn at Ballycarry - although they were at opposite ends of east Antrim and separated by the County of Carrickfergus - were extremely close because of the Dalway cattle trail. It is a bit like the close connections between two trading ports at opposite sides of a sea. This came home to me when I visited the graveyard at Ballynure Parish Church last week. On a ruined stone wall near the Dobbs' family vault, is a blue plaque erected by the Ulster History Circle to "JONATHAN SWIFT author of Gulliver's Travels, Prebendary here 1695-97".













Jonathan Swift's period as Church of Ireland Prebend of Kilroot is described in another earlier post ("The original Yahoos at Kilroot", 28 May 2010), but I was unaware then that his ecclesiastical duties extended beyond the 'East of Eden' parishes of Templecorran and Kilroot, to include this distant parish of Ballynure. Swift's literary importance is enormous as he has been described as the greatest satirist of English literature. So it is interesting to speculate about the possible closeness of Swift's friendship, not only with the Dalways and Dobbs at Kilroot (as they were the leading Episcopalian families in a district which was otherwise almost wholly Presbyterian), but also in Ballynure with Alexander Dalway's daughter Ellinor and her husband Edward Clements of Clements Hill (from whom 'Mark Twain' is believed to be descended).

THE CLEMENTS OF CLEMENTS HILL
King John in 1210 granted a charter to Henry Clemens and Roger de Preston to lands near the present town of Larne in County Antrim. By the 1600s, the family (sometimes spelled 'Clemence' and sometimes 'Clements') were living in the Ballynure area of the Six-Mile-Water valley.
In 1609, Edward and John Clements settled at Straid, which was then called Thomastown because it had been possessed under Elizabeth I by Thomas Stevenson of Carrickfergus. Edward Clements had just obtained a deed from John Dalway of the townlands of Ballythomas, Straidballythomas, and Ballymenagh. At the same time his brother John Clements is noticed as also holding lands near Straid.

About 1640, Henry Clements of Straid, who is believed to have been son of the above Edward, was deputy recorder of Carrickfergus. In 1648, we find him a captain in Sir John Clotworthy's regiment of foot, and in the following year in garrison at Carrickfergus, of which town he had been chosen an alderman. He died soon after.

Henry Clements (Junior) and his brother Edward, were among those who signed the Antrim Association in 1688. In 1692, Henry was one of the representatives in parliament for Carrickfergus. On the death of Henry, his brother Edward succeeded to the family estates. In 1707, he resided at Clements-hill, in which year he served the office of high sheriff of the county of Antrim, and in 1715 he was appointed major of a regiment of militia dragoons belonging to the same county, commanded by the Hon. John I. Chichester.

Edward Clements married Ellinor, daughter of Alexander Dalway, Ballyhill who died March, 1696, and by her had seven sons, and two daughters: Edward, Henry, Hercules, Francis, John, Dalway, Anne and Millicent. In 1716, Edward Clements was high sheriff of the county of Antrim. He died 1733.

The children of Edward Clements and Ellinor Dalway included several that had distinguished military careers. Francis was appointed major of dragoons on the decease of his father, and in 1721, served the office of high sheriff of the county of Antrim. Both John and Dalway Clements were officers in Colonel Skeffington's regiment when it served during the 1689 Siege of Derry. This tradition continued into the 18th century with several of the next generation of the family serving with their regiments in North America.

I have to admit that, swamped under a tide of genealogical information about the early migration of these Clements to America in the wake of Arthur Dobbs' first contingent from this area in 1751, I have not even attempted to trace the direct line of descent to Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain). But it is well worth somebody researching it - if only to justify another blue plaque in Ballynure graveyard. And, of course, also a similar one on Dalway's Bawn!

The original Yahoos at Kilroot

The 'Round House' in Kilroot, just a stone's throw east of Eden in county Antrim, was where Jonathan Swift is supposed to have lived when he was appointed by the established Church of Ireland to the Prebendary of Kilroot from 1695-1696.

From here he drafted his first satirical tirade against Scots and Presbyterians in his A Tale of a Tub, and where he gathered most of his ideas for Gulliver's Travels.

The problem for the young Anglo-Irishman was that when he was given his first charge after taking Holy Orders in Dublin, this Prebendary of Kilroot had only one 'working' church in the 3 parishes under his care. The parishes in question covered most of south-east Antrim, and were Kilroot, Islandmagee and Templecorran. The Templecorran church (now a ruin at Ballycarry) is the only one he is known to have attempted to hold services in. The story is told of how he found nobody at church on his first Sunday at Ballycarry, so went to the far end of the Main Street and stood like a statue until a crowd of curious inhabitants gathered round him. The he took ten giant strides forward, stopped and picked up a pebble from the street to put it in a bag, and then another ten, and so on - Pied Piper of Hamlyn style - until the crowd followed him up the churchyard and into the church. Then he bolted the door behind them and delivered his sermon. But brilliant story-teller as he was, a year later he still only had three or four Episcopalian families in as many parishes, with the remainder being almost entirely 'Scotch Dissenters' (Presbyterians).

Thus began Swift's obsession that religious and political conformity was divinely ordained - and that it was a principle more important than any detail of doctrine. A Tale of a Tub was a straight-forward satire against non-conformity. The survival of the ship of state (the state church - regardless of theology) was so important that when attacked by a whale (the devil), a tar-covered tub (non-conformist churches), had to be thrown overboard so that the whale would be diverted to play with the tub instead (and both Church and State saved). Swift wrote numerous pamphlets in support of the Religious Test Acts when they were first introduced in Ireland in 1703. These Test Acts denied Presbyterians the right to hold any public office without first taking the 'Sacramental Test' of receiving communion in the Established Church. Indeed, these Test Acts were to prove a significant stimulus for the massive migrations of Scotch-Irish to America in the early 1700s.

If A Tale of a Tub was fixated on the dissenter versus conformist debate in political and religious life, Gulliver's Travels gave vent to his other Anglo-Irish fixation: his feelings of superiority as an English 'giant' in Ireland, contrasting with his feelings of inferiority as an 'Irishman' in England. But in Gulliver's Travels, he still couldn't resist a poke at the terrible uncultured barbarians that were the bane of his life at Kilroot. 'Blefescu' that barbarian northern land was understood to be Belfast, for Wolfe Tone (leader of the United Irishmen in the 1798 rebellion) wrote "Thomas Paine's Right's of Man is now all the rage in Blefescu". Those strange people were the 'big-endians' who believed that a boiled egg should only be opened at the big end, and were blindly intolerant of those who believed otherwise. In the story, they were only to be outdone as uncouth Philistines by the Yahoos. The good folk of Kilroot knew exactly who Swift was labelling 'Yahoos'.

Now as a junior Yahoo in the 1950s, I, along with other Boney-boys, used to walk along the shore - or to be more accurate, the railway line - to Kilroot and explore the derelict 'Swift's Cottage'. No other house had rounded corners, and we were told that Dean Swift had built it like that so neither the devil nor Presbyterians could hide in the corners. I remember that the thatch was almost gone, for I could stick my head up through and gulder out at my mates in the garden - much to their shock, for they couldn't see where the noise was coming from.

The Round House was gutted by fire in 1959, and it (along with the adjacent Kilroot Railway Station) was knocked down shortly after to make way for the gigantic Kilroot Power Station. So what neither the devil nor the Presbyterians could shift, Ulster's biggest carbon-emitter could.