Matthew Clarkson (257)

Matthew Clarkson (15 April 1733–5 October 1800) was a merchant, trader of enslaved persons, Mayor of Philadelphia, and a member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. Born in New York, his father died by age six and his mother remarried the rising New Light Presbyterian minister Gilbert Tennent and relocated to Philadelphia. Matthew married at twenty-one and soon developed a flourishing dry good business, one interspersed with strategic, if unsuccessful, short-term mercantile collaborations. He rose in public esteem through small officeholding starting in 1768: he juggled roles as notary public, justice of the peace, was the clerk for the Philadelphia Contributionship as well as the Port Wardens (these until 1776), and was a board member for the Library Company (1771–76). From 1776–80 Clarkson served as the marshal of the Court of Admiralty, putting him in charge of enacting the Court’s decisions on particularly fraught cases regarding privateering, contraband, and the sale of prize ships—placing him in the crossfire between angry soon-to-be-former owners and eager would-be buyers. In 1784, at least, he began advertising sales of shipments of enslaved men. By the 1790s, Clarkson was an alderman and then in 1792–96 Mayor of Philadelphia. The 1793 Yellow Fever outbreak defined his tenure. Unlike most officials who fled to the countryside, he stayed and oversaw the ad-hoc government constructed of Philadelphia citizens, including Stephen Girard and later-APS Member Mathew Carey. Clarkson understood that his visible presence was a reassurance, and throughout the epidemic he made public appearances and went to the office every day, even after his wife contracted the virus (she recovered). He alone remained in his post with the Overseers of the Poor and played a crucial role within the Guardians of the Orphans to place children of loss. A supporter of the Pennsylvania Hospital since 1756, an active Member and financial supporter of the APS, and a promoter of many of Philadelphia’s developmental and benevolent projects, including the Society for Promoting Agriculture, the Philadelphia Dispensary, and more, Clarkson left a civic legacy. He died at home. (PI)