Louis Semple Clarke - Family

Family

Thomas Shields Clarke started out with a single river boat the “Beaver” in 1832, then by 1842 he and his brother in law William Thaw started Clarke and Co and by 1855 his son Charles joined the firm. Originally the firm was called Clarke and Thaw and over 15 years operated a fleet of steam boats which traveled all the way to New Orleans and was the designate shipping firm for all shipping west of Pittsburgh for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Louis was born into an influential family at an influential time in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, a time of great economic expansion and innovation for the region and country. The names which the Clarkes associated themselves were Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon and Henry Clay Frick to name a few of the more notorious all of whom were also members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, the club’s dam which broke in May 1889 caused the largest man-made disaster in US history at the time, the Johnstown flood.

Louis was inspired at this time of innovation and took a keen interest in new inventions and technologies. Louis’s inventive nature propelled him to build a handmade camera, with which he took many of the photos which are now part of the county’s historical treasure trove. As an avid photographer he was the primary person who documented the SFFHC activities prior and after the dam's collapse in May 1889. The glass plates used to take the pictures surfaced 100 years later when his granddaughter in 1991 found them in the attic. At the time she called Charles Guggenheim who had just finished a documentary on the Johnstown Flood and would win an academy award for short documentary in 1991. Additionally, the film was narrated by David McCullough who had also written a book the Johnstown Flood in 1968 with various pictures including a picture of Louis.

Louis was probably the last man at the age of 22 to join the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, as his membership stock certificate is dated April 1889, although he attended the club under his father’s membership since his father and various other members had founded the club in May 1879. He and other younger members were energetic about all things mechanical and given the times they placed a small steam engines on boats to cruise across Lake Conemaugh and often LS would dress up as a sailor and “man” his station.