The Mosby Family:
Pauline Clarke Mosby


Pauline Clarke Mosby

Mariah Pauline Clarke was born on March 30, 1837, in Frankfort, Kentucky.

She came from a strong Catholic family and she and her sisters were all given first names that were some variant of Mary. These were purely baptismal names and they all went by their middle names.

Pauline Clarke was the daughter of Virginia-born stateman and diplomat Beverly Leonidas Clarke and the former Pauline Hopkins. Mr. Clarke was born in Winterfield, Chesterfield County, Va., on February 11, 1809 and moved to Kentucky as a young man of 14 with his parents.

He studied law in Franklin and Lexington Kentucky and was admitted to the bar in 1833, the year of John Singleton Mosby's birth. He became active in the Democratic party and was elected to the state legislature in 1841 and to the US Congress in 1846, serving one term. Did young Pauline spend a few crucial formative years (from age 10 to 12) based in Washington DC? We have not seen documentation either way, but her political sophistication would suggest so.

In 1856, the nineteen year old Miss Clarke was visiting friends in Howardsville, Albemarle County, Virginia where she met an aspiring and newly qualified young lawyer -- John Singleton Mosby. They formed a strong bond --as a lawyer's daughter, she knew a reasonable amount about the law and could follow his conversations in a way that other girls could not. She also shared his interest in literature and impressed him that she could hold her own in conversations about books and current events. She also shared his sense of humor. And, she was pretty!

(Note: Mosby was used to, and liked, intelligent women, because of the early influence of his mother. He encouraged his younger sisters and his daughters in their intellectual pursuits, with the result that his daughter Stuart became a journalist in the late 19th century.)

When it came time for Pauline Clarke to return home to Kentucky from her visit, they corresponded and Mosby went to Kentucky to visit her. They became engaged and were married on 30 Dec 1857 at a hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. Among the wedding guests was Senator and future President Andrew Johnson.

After returning to Virginia, they decided to leave Howardsville, where the pickings were slim for young lawyers, and move to Bristol, Virginia, which had the combined advantages of being nearer to Pauline's Kentucky home and Tennessee connections and also not then having a lawyer's practice.

By this time, Pauline's father was serving abroad, as President Buchanan's appointed Ambassador to Honduras and Guatemala. He had lost his 1855 Gubernatorial bid to the nominee of the "No Nothings", no doubt to some degress because of opposition to his wife and children being Catholic. He went on to be an active campaigner for Buchanan, having served as a delegate to the 1856 Democratic Convention.

Pauline and John settled into married life in Bristol, Their first child, May Virginia, was born in 1859 and their second, Beverly, was born in 1860.

When John joined the First Virginia Cavalry and his regiment was sent north, he was a prolific letter writer. When he was promoted to adjutant and the unit went into winter camp near Gainesville, she came to visit him, staying in a boarding house with other officer's wives.

After he became established in Northern Virginia, she same to visit again, this time on a much lengthier stay. The Mosby's boarded at the home of James Hathaway, near Rectortown. It was here that the famous incident occurred of Yankees coming to look for Mosby and his taking refuge in a large tree outside the bedroom window. (See the article, "Perils of Pauline Mosby" from the Mosby Museum newsletter, below.)

A third child, John Singleton Mosby, Jr., was born to the Mosby's during the war.

A strong defender of her husband, she went to the White House see President Johnson soon after the war and urged him to give her husband -- then still threatened with arrest --- amnesty so that he might sign the oath of allegiance to the Union. Despite being a family friend who had attended their wedding, Johnson refused. Mosby's pardon finally came through but through the intervention of General Grant, with no thanks to Johnson

Once the pardon came through, the Mosby's set up housekeeping in Warrenton, where he established a legal practice. They bought Brentmoor, a large house on Main Street and had three further daughter - Victoria Stuart, b. 1867, named after Mosby's hero JEB Stuart; Pauline, b. 1869; and Ada Catherine, b. 1871, named after her aunt who had died young not long before her namesake's birth.

Then, tragedy began to strike the young family. Their third son, George Prentiss Mosby, was born in 1873 but died as a baby. Their last child, Alfred Daniel Mosby, born in March, 1876 died shortly thereafter.

Pauline Mosby suffered complications from this last pregnancy and never recovered. She died on May 10, 1876. She was only 39 years old.

She was an extremely devout Catholic and her headstone makes reference of this fact. Through her influence, two of her sisters in law converted and one (Florence) became a nun.

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