Ashfield: Erasmus Darwin Clary

05/15/2009 13:39
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Erasmus Darwin Clary was the son of Ethan Allen Clary (1776-1849), who lived primarily in Ashfield and Springfield Massachusetts. Ethan’s father was Samuel, who was born in Sunderland (1736) and moved to Ashfield about 1780. Ethan was born in Sunderland, but grew up in Ashfield. (1) In 1799 and 1800, Ethan was a postal rider, covering a route for a private weekly delivery between Northampton and Ashfield, via Whately (25 to 30 miles). (2) Ethan married Electa Smith, daughter of Lemuel Smith (originally from East Haddam, CT) in 1802 or 1803 (Ashfield records say 7-16-1803). Their first son, Erasmus Darwin, was born 12-4-1803.

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Ethan and Electa moved to Springfield in 1809, when Ethan was appointed to a position at the Federal Armory there. Ethan was almost immediately involved in a prosecution for selling a pint of rum to a soldier on Armory grounds. He fought the charge all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and lost. (3) In spite of this, Ethan held this Armory position until 1812, when he was posted to Boston as a recruiting officer for the war effort. Ethan was commissioned a first lieutenant and served in the Fortieth Infantry until the war’s end. He then returned to Springfield, and held a clerical position in the Armory from 1816 until his retirement in 1833. From 1833 to 1842, Ethan “filled different offices of trust and responsibility in the custom House at Boston, among them that of deputy naval officer.” In 1844, Ethan was proposed for nomination as Postmaster General, but rejected for political reasons. (5) Ethan retired and resettled in Springfield, where he was a Justice of the Peace in 1848. (6) Ethan died in 1849; Electa returned to Cambridge, where she lived until her death in 1871, age 90. (4)

Ethan and Electa had twelve children between 1803 and 1826, the first four born in Ashfield. Erasmus Darwin Clary was born 12-4-1803 (12-19-1803 in Sunderland), and entered West Point in 1818. Erasmus failed to complete his studies at the military academy, and worked as a clerk in the Army Quartermaster’s Department in Washington, D.C. In 1822, Erasmus married his first cousin Sarah Clary, daughter of Ethan’s older brother Arad. Erasmus died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1854 at age 51. (1)

In addition to Erasmus, Ethan and Electa had three other sons who survived infancy. They were all named for famous contemporary men, and the choice of names suggests much about the Clarys’ political leanings. Their second child, born in 1805 in Ashfield, was named for Robert Emmet (1778-1803), an Irish revolutionary executed in 1803 after a failed revolt in Dublin. The third child, a son named Albert, was born in 1806 and died in 1808. His name was reused for the seventh child, Albert Gallatin Clary, born in 1814. Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) was Secretary of the Treasury from 1801-1814, and an outspoken opponent of Alexander Hamilton and leader of Jefferson’s new Democratic-Republican Party. The final son, born in 1816, was named after Henry Dearborn (1751-1829), physician, veteran of the Revolution and War of 1812, and Secretary of War under President Jefferson.

Erasmus’ brothers were more successful and longer-lived. General Robert Emmet Clary graduated West Point and had a long military career. He served as Chief Quartermaster for the Department of West Virginia during the Civil War, and retired in 1869. After living in Springfield for several years, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he died in 1890 at age 85. Commodore Albert Gallatin Clary entered the Navy in 1832 as a midshipman, and ended his life in Lisbon, Portugal around the turn of the century. Henry Dearborn Clary began a thirty-year career in the Boston custom house at age 19. After retiring, he lived in Cambridge until his death in 1878, age 62. (4)

1. John Montague Smith et al., History of the Town of Sunderland, Massachusetts, 1899, p. 300.
2. Josiah Howard Temple, History of Whately, 1872, p. 186.
3. Connecticut Valley Historical Society, Papers and Proceedings, 1904-1907, Vol. IV, 1912, p. 232.
4. Charles Wells Chapin, Sketches of the Old Inhabitants and Other Citizens of Old Springfield, 1893, p. 145.
5. Mason Arnold Green, Springfield, 1636-1886, 1888, p. 456.
6. Nahum Capen, ed., Massachusetts State Record and Year Book of General Information, 1848, Vol. II, p. 75.


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