From the Sunday Evansville Courier and Press
November 17, 1963

CLEMENTSBURG
By David S. Katz

williammaples@hotmail.com

Marion, KY. - These early words written by Samuel L. Clemens can very well apply to a branch of his family that settled and still lives in Crittenden County.

In 1611, the first Clemens or Clement arrived in Jamestown, VA., on the Ship George, with her four children. From these beginnings came Mark Twain, born in 1835, and John Rudd Clement, one of the early settlers in what now is Crittenden County, born in 1810.

Long Study Noted:

John Clement also had a dream, but due to an untimely accidental death at his mill at the age of 49, his was never fulfilled. His branch of the family migrated to Kentucky when it was still part of Virginia, according to Miss Bessie Clements, Panerama City, CA. Who has been visiting her aunt, Mrs. Elbert Lucas (Sally Clement) of Route 4, Marion.

Miss Clements had done much research on the family through records in the Library of Congress, studying a genealogy developed by Col. Coleman Clement another member of the family of Atlanta, GA. and other sources.

Flood Damaged Home

A history has never been written of the family, because many of the records were destroyed during the Civil War. Around 1834, the time of his marriage, John Rudd Clement built a home on the Ohio River, where memebrs of his family continued living until the flood of 1937 partially destroyed it.

By 1843, the family had acquiared 2,000 acres of land around the Ohio River, and John's dream of the city of Clementsburg was born. An entry recording the establishment of the town appears in the Crittenden County court records on March 13 of that year. Three years later John took further roots building a large wooden frame addition to the two-room log cabin.

End of a Dream

Then, on Dec. 4, 1850, Clement, a surveyor, submitted plans involving a 137 acre lot, which included the site of his home, to the Crittenden County Clerk, and five days later it was duly filed.

The Kentucky settler continued developing plans for the city that was to bear his name. He established a ferry, helped survey roads for himself and others and ran a mill. Then around June 4, 1858, John Rudd clement died as a result of an accident at his mill, and with him died his dream. He was laid to rest in a family cemetery on his land, where six others of his family are also buried.

Some Drifted Away The family stayed on for a while in the large, two-story home. Mrs. Lucas, now 80, and Miss Clements have many memories of their early days on the Ohio River. Gradually, some members of the family drifted away while others stayed on. Those that stayed continued to figure in the public life of Crittenden County, like MRs. Eugene Mackey (Alice Wathan), presently working for the circuit court there. She is a descendant of Clement on her mother's side of the family. The elements also took their toll of the dream. The house became weather-beaten and the family moved out. In 1937, the Ohio River flooded some of the surrounding area and the final decay of the homestead began.

A Memory Prized All that remains of the what once was to be a city are ruins of the Clement's farm (within eyesight of Lock an Dam 50) chimneys, garden plots now overgrown with honeysuckle vines, and remnants of wooden fences. Members of the family throughout the area recovered furnishings for the home during and after the '37 flood. Still in useful service in the Lucas home are a matching rosewood bed and bureau, a coal-oil lamp chandelier converted to electricity, and several other pieces. Mrs. Lucas is also the custodian of the family Bible dated 1865. Another recovered a four-poster so large it took a mule team to move it. If Clement had lived out his life, perhaps he would have formed the beginnings of an important city. But the family still prizes the memory of a dream that could have been and a man that was.

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