The stirring events which followed we have all learned in history, how the state was divided into two factions, the Clarkeites and those for Crawford and Troup. The state was so evenly divided that the fight was fierce. The common people and owners of small farms were for Clarke, the "gentry" and well-to-do educated folk for Crawford, and sent him to the United States Senate. Clarke and Crawford from youth had been antagonistic. Clarke, while uneducated, was brilliantly intelligent, but deeply sensitive. Crawford was polished and of courtly bearing, a man of education, but was very overbearing. Had he lived today our public school boy would say "he was always nagging at Clarke." Be that as it may, it was nip and tuck between them in the gubernatorial campaign. Clarke fought a duel with Crawford at High Shoals, and shattered his wrist. Later he tried to get Crawford to meet him again, but he persistently refused. One ugly thing to me was the horsewhipping of Judge Tate by Governor Clarke on the streets of Milledgeville, then the capital. This did Clarke no good.
General Clarke twice defeated Mr. Troup for governor. Troup was at last elected, defeating Matthew Talbot, who was on Clarke's side in 1823. General Clarke was defeated by Talbot himself. There is never an article written about Clarke that his bad spelling is not referred to. Not long ago I read in a magazine published in Georgia that Clarke spelled coffee "kaughphy." This is not true, that honor belongs to Matthews, another one of the familiar figures once on the streets of Washington. Even the best educated of our Revolutionary heroes did not spell correctly as we call it, from George Washington down.
I rather enjoy their license for I think English spelling is a tyrannical imposition. After the defeat of Clarke the tide was against him. Many untrue things were said about him and they cut him deeply. He was misunderstood often, and in chagrin he left the state.
Rise, O Muse, in the wrath of thy rapture divine,
And sweep with a finger of fame every line
Till it tremble and burn as thine own glances burn
Through the vision thou kindlest wherein I discern
All the unconscious cruelty hid in the heart
Of mankind; all the limitless grief we impart
Unawares to each other; the limitless wrong
We inflict without need, as we hurry along
In this boisterous pastime of life.
Beneath the rough exterior there never beat a kinder heart than that in the breast of John Clarke. Although he had the brusque manner of a soldier of Revolutionary days, with those he loved he was as tender and gentle as a child. On one occasion soon after his first election to the governorship of Georgia there was a banquet given in his honor. The decorations on the white linen of the table were wreaths of holly, thought to be very beautiful and tasty. When the governor entered with his friends he stopped stock still in the doorway turning deathly pale. He ordered every piece of holly dashed from the window. The occurrence was spread far and wide all over the state and criticism ran high, and even his friends disapproved of the uncivil act of one in his high station. He never made an explanation until years afterwards.
Memories with him did not die, though beneath the ashes of the silent past. If he might call them dead, and bury them, it seems they only slept, and ere he knew, at but a word, a breath, the softest sigh, they woke once more and moved here as he thought they would not evermore. Clarke owned large tracts of land in Wilkes county (before it was cut up into other counties.) One deed is made to Wylie Pope in 1806. He reserves twenty feet where his two children are buried, Elijah Clarke and George Walton Clarke. Leaving Georgia he settled in Washington county, Florida, on the shores of the beautiful "Old Saint Andrews." Here he entertained his friends and here he spent the last ten years of his life within the sound of the restless, surging waters of the gulf. October 12th, 1832, Governor Clarke passed from this life, and eight days later his wife joined him in the Great Beyond. They were buried near the seashore in a beautiful grove of live oaks, and a marble shaft erected over them bears the following inscription:
Here reposes the remains of
John Clarke
Late Governor of Georgia
And
Nancy Clarke
His Wife
(North Face of Monument)
John Clarke
Born Feb. 28th, 1760
Died October 12th, 1832
As an officer he was vigilant and brave
As a statesman energetic and faithful
As a father and friend devoted and sincere.
(West Face)
This monument was erected by their surviving children, Ann Campbell and Wylie P. Clarke.