Tuckerman-Clark Family Papers

The Tuckerman-Clark Family Papers contain limited documentation about the personal and professional lives of multiple members of the families of Margaret Tuckerman and her husband Orton Loring Clark. The papers span more than 150 years but occupy only approximately 4.0 linear feet of shelf space in three boxes. The bulk of the material falls into the period of 1840-1920. The material is arranged chronologically within each of two series.

Because the collection is small and yet contains information relating directly to more than a dozen individuals, it has the feel of a survey, where individuals are represented by a sample of documents but where there is not enough information to gain a full picture of any one person’s life. Information about Margaret’s line in Series 1 includes documentation about both the Tuckerman family of her father, Dr. Frederick Tuckerman, and the Cooper family of her mother, Abigail Girdler Cooper. For example, the Tuckerman family documentation includes a selection of material that samples poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman’s early interest in poetry and literature, as well as the tragic family history he endured; lichenologist Professor Edward Tuckerman’s role as head of the family for his generation and his lifelong interest in genealogy; organist and composer Samuel Parkman Tuckerman’s interest in European travel, and his personal and professional contacts there, and – in the next generation -- Dr. Frederick Tuckerman’s wide-ranging interests in botany, genealogy, local history, and other subjects.

The Cooper line in Series 1 is less well represented in the Papers, but of particular interest is the logbook kept by Margaret Tuckerman’s grandfather James Sullivan Cooper (lived 1802-1870) during the family’s life in Calais, Maine, to their move to Amherst, Massachusetts, in May, 1866. The logbook contains information relevant both to the Cooper family and to transactions with people associated with Cooper’s work as a lawyer in Maine. In addition, the collection also provides a photographic glimpse of the young Margaret Tuckerman who inspired notes and verses from her neighbor Emily Dickinson. The Coopers were well known to the Dickinsons not only as neighbors living two short blocks apart, but also because Margaret’s uncle James Ingersoll Cooper was Austin Dickinson’s law partner, and her uncle Charles Wendell Cooper was a local physician. Both men were in the Amherst College Class of 1873.

The papers also contain a very limited selection of documents associated with Orton Loring Clark, who married Margaret Tuckerman in June, 1916. Clark was a botanist and biologist specializing in plant physiology at the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts). He taught there from 1913 to 1946. Clark was a woodworker and an art lover who donated many of his own works to local organizations and individuals as well as to museums and to people he admired. The collection contains documentation in Series 2 of some of his donations. Albums containing photographs of his work and his home are in the separate collection called the “Orton Loring and Margaret Tuckerman Clark Papers” (MA 01027). The Clarks lived in what is now the Amherst College property known as the Clark House on College Street, and one of the designs Orton Clark used frequently, a modernized fleur-de-lis, is still visible on the front of the house.

The collections listed in the Related Materials Note are important resources for anyone interested in learning more about some of the major figures in the Tuckerman-Clark Family Papers. Researchers should consult the finding aids associated with these collections for more details.