Clara Jones

Quick Facts

Significance:

Freedom Seeker on the Planter

Place of Birth:

Charleston, South Carolina

Date of Birth:

Approximately 1844

Place of Death:

Unknown

Date of Death:

Unknown

Place of Burial:

Unknown

Cemetery Name:

Unknown

Some of the earliest reports of the Planter indicated that Robert Smalls had three children aboard the vessel as they sailed towards freedom. But he and his wife Hannah only had two children – an infant Robert Jr and a toddler, Elizabeth. So, who was the third child? Like most who departed Charleston Harbor on the Planter, seeking freedom in the early hours of May 13th, 1862, Clara Jones’s life is shrouded in mystery both before that night and beyond.

When Hannah Jones met Robert Smalls around 1855, she already had two children from another unknown relationship: Charlotte (aged 14) and Clara (age 12). Robert was only around 16 or 17 at the time – meaning he was much closer in age to Hannah’s daughters than he was to Hannah. The next year, on Christmas Eve in 1856, Robert and Hannah were married in Beaufort, making Robert the stepfather of Charlotte and Clara.

In May 1862, Robert Smalls and the crew of the Planter developed a plan to take the vessel and sail to freedom. By this time, Charlotte already had an infant of her own, making Robert Smalls a 23-year-old step-grandfather when he boarded the vessel that night. Charlotte opted to remain behind in Charleston with her baby. But her sister, Clara Jones, boarded the Planter and sailed to freedom alongside more than a dozen others. It’s likely that she helped her mother take care of Robert Jr, and Elizabeth Smalls, who were both very young at the time, in the dark hold of the vessel. After arriving to Union occupied Beaufort, little is known about Clara’s life. Did she attend school in Beaufort during the Port Royal Experiment? Did she purchase property or find work? In fact, there is little documentary evidence of Clara at all after boarding the Planter.

The 1870 Census notes that Charlotte, who had remained in Charleston during the war, had moved to Beaufort and was living at the family home on Prince Street. But Clara isn’t listed. There is a Clara Smalls listed in the 1870 census living elsewhere in the city and working as a domestic servant, but it is possible that this is another Clara. The 1880 census is the first documentation of Clara’s whereabouts after her journey to freedom. She lived on Craven Street, just a few blocks away from the present-day visitor center for Reconstruction Era National Historical Park. She was living with her sister, Charlotte and her children, and a man named George Springer, who was a sailor. By this point, Clara had two children of her own – Sarah and Beulah.

The two sisters, Charlotte and Clara, lived at the intersection of Craven and West Street in downtown Beaufort. In 1886, Charlotte died in a house fire, and Clara took in her surviving son. But this is one of the last times we have documentary evidence of Clara’s life. We don’t know exactly what happened to Clara, but we have some clues. Clara’s two daughters, Sarah and Beulah, lived well into the 20th Century. Both of their death certificates list their maiden names as “Smalls” – reflective of the fact that although Robert Smalls may not have been their birth father, they were considered part of the family. The death certificates also confirm that George Springer was their father. So, in the 1880 census, George wasn’t just the head of household, he was in a relationship with Clara Jones. When Beulah died, her obituary celebrated her as the step granddaughter of Robert Smalls. Even 90 years after the night of the Planter, Clara’s family connection was still known in the community.

Clara’s daughter, Beulah Fisher, is buried in the same cemetery as Elizabeth Bampfield. And there is a visible footstone with the same initials as Clara’s other daughter, Sarah, nearby, so it’s possible that Clara is buried there as well in an unmarked grave. But this freedom-seeker remains a mystery. She escaped from Charleston Harbor on the night of May 12, 1862, and by the 1880s she was a member of Beaufort’s thriving Black middle class. But then, she too, seems to disappear from the archival record – a fate common to many of those on board the Planter that night.

Resources

• Andrew Billingsly, Yearning to Breathe Free: Robert Smalls of South Carolina and His Families (University of South Carolina Press, 2007)
• 1870 and 1880 US Census for Beaufort, South Carolina Beulah H. Fisher in the South Carolina, U.S., Death Records, 1821-1972 (ancestry.com)
• Sarah R. Hamilton in the South Carolina, U.S. Death Records, 1821-1972 (ancestry.com)
• “Final Rites Held for Mrs. Beulah Fisher Sunday, At F.A.B. Chuch” Beaufort Gazette, Thursday, September 4, 1958.