William Clark’s Early Education

An illustration of an early American home school.  Public Domain.

Little is known of William Clark's schooling but it quite likely started at home alongside his nine brothers and sisters, or possibly at the home of a neighbor. If the Clark family would have stayed in Virginia, William certainly could have studied with a tutor, but in 1784 they moved to the Kentucky frontier when William was 14. Tutors and other amenities were simply not available.

It can be surmised that William could have been tutored by his older brother, George Rogers Clark, who had a year or so of formal education and a lifetime of wilderness skills to teach his younger brother.

Even though Clark lacked a formal education, we know he could read, write, and was very proficient at many skills that helped him succeed in the military. Clark rose to the rank of captain in the Kentucky militia by the age of 20 and his attributes included military command, engineering and construction, land surveying, and cartography. He also managed the financial aspects of his family’s business, and later he aided in the financial situation of his famous older brother.

Of course, many throughout history have poked fun at Clark’s inability to spell words. However, phonetic, non-standard spelling was nothing unusual in the late 18th century. Nobody even proposed a standard method of spelling in America until Noah Webster’s first published a dictionary in 1806.