Hannah Watts Clarke

 (circa 1754–1843)

Hannah Watts Clarke was a lifelong member of the Society of Friends. Her portrait, attributed to Charles Burton, an English painter, was done about 1840. She is shown in profile looking out on what is thought to be the first Quaker Meeting House in Richmond, built by George Winston on 19th and Cary Streets.

By 1840 Hannah was a widow and the matriarch of a sizable kinship group of Quakers who had emigrated to Richmond from Northern Ireland in the early 1800’s.

The Clarkes (Hannah, her husband, John, and their eight children) were from County Antrim, Ulster. The transfer of their memberships from Lisburn Monthly Meeting to Richmond Particular Meeting was recorded on the 12th of Third Month, 1801. They left a country plagued by poverty and political unrest following the Union of Ireland and Great Britain in 1800. The family resided on Main Street between 18th and 19th, where John Clarke worked as a grocer nearby. Their home was only a block away from the Meeting House.

The original portrait, which is done in watercolor and pastel, is in the possession of Eda Williams Martin of Williamsburg, Virginia. The photo print here was made from a transparency of the original portrait loaned to us by the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Colonial Williamsburg. There are seventeen extant portraits of Clarke and Sinton family members done by Burton. Hannah’s portrait is the only one showing the Meeting House, perhaps symbolic of the importance of the Meeting in her life as well as realistic. It is the only known depiction of the Meeting House in existence.

Text was supplied by Eda Williams Martin and is based on research she has done in Quaker records.