American Acorns

People · See in the family tree · Story: William Banton Clarkson in the cotton trade, 1895 to 1916

William Banton Clarkson (1858-1933)

From Liverpool to Texas

William Banton Clarkson was born in Liverpool on 8 May 1858. That is the date on his signed 1921 passport application and on his death certificate, and he was baptized at All Saints on 22 June 1858. Confirmed In 1861 he was two, in the household of his father, a brewer and wine and spirit merchant, at 171 Islington. In 1881, aged 22, he was a commercial clerk, still living with his parents at The Priory in Toxteth Park. Confirmed The census does not say whom he worked for or why he later left England.

He married Alice Ann Peaple in the Prestwich registration district late in 1883 (marriage index only). Likely In 1921 he swore that he had sailed from London about February 1884. That is Confirmed as his statement; the voyage itself is Likely, since no passenger list has been found and the 1900 census gives 1885.

The cotton business

By November 1888 a W. B. Clarkson in San Antonio was named to a precinct committee of the Young Men's Reform Club; the paper gives only his initials. Likely In December 1889 Slayden & Clarkson advertised wholesale and retail hay, grain, produce and salt on Nueva Street Confirmed, and the 1891 city directory, as transcribed, lists James L. Slayden and William B. Clarkson as cotton buyers at 24 West Nueva. Likely In 1891, William was in his parents' household at The Friars, listed as married, aged 32 and working as a cotton merchant. The reason for his stay is not recorded. Likely

In September 1895 the San Antonio Daily Light reported that the United States had sued J. L. Slayden, W. B. Clarkson and W. C. Robards for $1,000, alleging a contract to bring a cotton buyer into the country from abroad. The report is Confirmed; the allegation was not tested in any record found, and no outcome is known. A year later the same paper reported a filed inventory listing his stock in compress, improvement and real-estate companies at $52,851: the newspaper's figure from a filed schedule, not an audited value. Confirmed

In June 1900 William was a cotton buyer in Houston's Third Ward, living with Alice and their seven children. Confirmed On 12 August 1904 the Daily Light reported a voluntary bankruptcy petition by William Banton Clarkson, Edward Moritz Goldstein and Henry Clarkson, trading as Clarkson & Co., with most of the creditors abroad, and a separate petition for relief from debts of his former firm, Slayden, Clarkson & Robards. Confirmed The outcome has not been found. Within weeks the family was reported to be moving from Houston to San Antonio for good Likely; no record says why. By his later statement he was naturalized at the Bexar County Court on 14 September 1906; the court's record has not been checked. Likely

In May 1911 he was one of the hosts of a farewell dinner at the Menger Hotel for retired Brigadier General P. D. Vroom. Confirmed In January 1912 he was named in another bankruptcy petition, as a partner in Thomas H. Clarkson & Co. Confirmed Whether that Thomas H. is the 1904 "Henry," or William's brother, is not established. By December 1916 he was president of the Clarkson Cotton Company, listed among San Antonio's cotton exporters. Confirmed In 1921, nearly 63, he called himself a cotton shipper, recorded stays in Liverpool in 1919 and 1920, and planned to travel to England, France and Italy to arrange cotton shipments. Confirmed Whether he sailed as planned, on the Caronia from New York on 30 April 1921, is not confirmed.

Family and last years

The 1900 census lists seven children in the household: Florence, Dora, Alice, Herbert, Percy, Laurel and Phyllis, and records Alice as the mother of seven children, all living. Confirmed His obituary reports five surviving daughters and two sons. Dora married Hilmer G. Guenther at her parents' San Antonio home on 16 June 1909. Confirmed She was born in June 1887, as the 1900 census and her death certificate agree; the 1877 on her gravestone does not fit. Confirmed

The Houston Daily Post reported in May 1901 that William Clarkson of Liverpool had visited W. B. Clarkson in Houston and was going to see another, unnamed son in MacLeod, Canada. Confirmed The visitor is probably his father. Likely

Alice died in San Antonio on 25 April 1922. Confirmed In 1930, widowed, William lived at 213 Washington Street with his daughter Florence Groos. He died there on 8 September 1933, aged 75, a retired cotton broker, and was buried in Mission Burial Park on 10 September. Confirmed His obituary gave San Antonio as his home for nearly all his fifty years in Texas; the Houston household of 1900 shows that was not the whole story.

Name and identity discrepancies

Relationships shown: son of William Clarkson and Emma Lucy Green Confirmed; husband of Alice Ann Peaple Likely; father of Florence, Dora, Alice, Herbert Slayden, Percy W., Laurel and Phyllis Confirmed, from the 1900 census household.

Later generations are covered on the individual person pages.

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