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 Road from Boneybefore

Our history in Boneybefore was folk history - tales told to us by the likes of Tillie Millar from the door of her thatched cottage.

"This was once the main horse and coach road to Larne", she told us. "Along here dandered Andrew Jackson's mother, wi' the future President in her wame (womb); and Jonathan Swift, the man that writ Gulliver's Travels, spittin' on the Presbyterians as he passed; and General Thurot wi' his French soldiers marching on Carrick".
"How did Boney get its name?" we asked.
"This is where the French soldiers landed", Tillie said, "and General Thurot told Napoleon that they were at a bonny wee place before Carrick".

That last story made us laugh, for even in those days we knew the French didn't speak Ulster-Scots. But, a large farm above Boneybefore was given the polite name of 'Fair Prospect' and the older spelling is sometimes "Bonnybefore" as it is on the map below. 'Boney' is simply how we pronounced the Scots word 'bonny' in Ulster, and the best-known version of that is in the local song "The boney wee lass" (which has nothing to do with the pretty young girl's frame!)

We never took such folk history very seriously back then, but as I went on myself to travel the long road from Boneybefore to the bigger world, I discovered not only the truth of most of those tales, but that it was my school-book history which was often untrustworthy. In 1760 a Francois Thurot did land 600 French troops 'near Kilroot' and captured Carrickfergus after the 'Battle of Carrickfergus' in the streets of the town. He held it for 5 days and then fled back to France by sea.

On reflection, the most impressive of all Tillie Millar's gems of Boneybefore history was her insistence that the dust-track running through our village was once a main coach road, (something that seemed unlikely to us as we were sandwiched in a backwater between the railway line along the shore on one side, and the wide, main Larne Road on the other side). But the map evidence tells a different story.


The 'Carrickfergus and Larne Railway Company' opened the line to Larne about 1845, and it cut across the line of the old coach road just before Boneybefore, removing the original Andrew Jackson homestead in the process. From this point a new 'Larne Road' was constructed by-passing Boneybefore and it took a new course through the 'new' village of Eden. But the old line of the original coach road (a dashed red line on map) could still be traced in laneways and footpaths right to the ancient church site of Kilroot when I was a boy.

Kilroot Church was founded in the 5th century, right back at the time of St Patrick. It has the ruins of a bishop's palace and a surrounding bawn wall with two surviving round corner flankers (but nothing like as grand as those at Dalway's Bawn). The old church ruins are just tiny fragments of stone walls, in the middle of an ancient graveyard. Jonathan Swift was appointed Prebend of Kilroot in 1695, and lived nearby.

I have made mention of Jonathan Swift and his Kilroot house in an earlier post, but two other boyhood associations with this ancient site come to mind. There was a large round stone with a cup shaped hollow in it that held stagnant water, and was believed to be a cure for warts. My old school pal Eric Glynn did try it on a wart he had on his thumb, and it did work! I now know this was a "bullaun" stone (check it out on wikipedia) and these are reckoned to be early Christian in date. It has been removed to a local church, I think, as a baptismal font.

The second association I have with Kilroot is the old graveyard. Only once did we ever hear of a burial in our time there. It was a very cold January, and Tommy Donaldson had died. It was his farmhouse in Boneybefore that is now the "Andrew Jackson Museum". The reason the Donaldsons had burial rights in Kilroot must tell a story of its own, but I presume they were an old family with connections hundreds of years before going back to that parish. Anyway, when Tommy died, there was a fierce snowstorm and the Kilroot graveyard was cut off for over 3 weeks. The delay with Tommy lying in 'cold storage' in Boneybefore was the talk of the place for years, and seemed to emphasize the question we all had - why Kilroot?

The other end of the road from Boneybefore was, of course, the road into Carrick town. This was just over a mile, and the line of the original coach road was mostly the same main road as today from Green Street along the Scotch Quarter into the town. .


Right back in 1680, a drawing of the east side of Carrickfergus shows the line of thatched houses in Scotch Quarter (outside the town walls) leading along the shore towards Boneybefore. This is just as Jonathan Swift must have known it when he rode from Kilroot to Carrickfergus and Belfast.

Of course, the Scotch Quarter has only larger, slated houses today, but between there and Boneybefore the road was known as Green Street (from a local linen bleaching works and bleaching green). The houses here were all still thatched as shown in this photo when I used to walk past them into Carrick as a very young boy.

The house on the extreme right had a sweetie shop in the front room that was open on a Sunday - a bit of a scandal in those days. In the rain we could shelter under the overhanging thatch, and on our way to Sunday School at Joymount Presbyterian Church in Scotch Quarter, we could sin twice at the same time by spending part of our collection and going into a shop on the Sabbath. We all were clutching a 3d bit (a three pence coin) for our collection, and could buy 2d's worth of penny chews and have one penny left for the collection. I think that is my first real recollection of having a guilty conscience!

What a different history this old coach road from Boneybefore had compared to the old drove road in the Commons. But for me the road from Boneybefore is different in another way. It takes me back with sadness to happy memories, if that makes sense.