Mary Lee (Clark) Thompson (1835 - 1923)

Born 27 Dec 1835 in Naples, Ontario, New York, United States

Ancestors

Wife of Frederick Ferris Thompson — married 17 Jun 1857 in Canandaigua, Ontario, New York, United States

Died 28 Jul 1923 at age 87 in Canandaigua, Ontario, New York, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Matthew Thompson [send private message]

Biography

Philanthropist, daughter of New York state governor Myron Holley Clark and his wife, Zilpha Watkins. She married bank founder and philanthropist Frederick Ferris Thompson. The couple had no children of their own, but their homes were always filled with neices and nephews. After her husband's death, Mary continued his philanthropic interests, putting her husband's name to many New York libraries, museums, chapels, and the F. F. Thompson Hospital, now Thompson Health Network. She also built the elaborate gardens at their summer estate, Sonnenberg, which is now a state park.

Clark Reservation State Park is a state park in Onondaga County, New York. The park is in Jamesville, NY, in the Town of DeWitt, south of Syracuse. It was the site of a large waterfall formed by melting glacial ice at the end of the last Ice Age; the plunge basin at the base of the old falls is now a small lake. James Macfarlane described the area in 1879, "On approaching the lake from the turnpike on the south side, the tourist is startled at finding himself, without any notice, on the brink of a yawning gulf, precisely like that of the Niagara River below the Falls, and nearly as deep." Clark Reservation is also noted for its many ferns; it harbors the largest population in the U.S. of American hart's tongue, which is so rare that it was declared endangered in the U.S. in 1989.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the land around the park belonged to Onondaga people. In the late 18th century, these lands were divided into military tracts to be awarded to soldiers returning from the Revolutionary War. Joshua Clark noted the lake and its precipitous cliffs in his 1840 book about Onondaga County. In 1879, James Macfarlane purchased the area around the fossil waterfall and the lake, and opened a small resort hotel in the park. Macfarlane (1819–1885) was a noted attorney, coal geologist, geological guidebook writer, and enthusiast of the area near what was then called Green Lake (later renamed Glacier Lake to avoid confusion with the nearby Green Lake in Fayetteville, NY). The resort's offerings included picnicking, boating, fishing, croquet and archery, but it closed after a few years.

The central part of the current park, amounting to 75 acres (30 ha) and including Glacier Lake and the fossil waterfall, was bought by Mary Clark Thompson in 1915. Thompson had learned that the fossil waterfall was being considered for a limestone quarry; just to the east were the enormous limestone quarries of the Solvay Process Company. Thompson gave this tract to the New York State Museum, with the stipulation that the land be preserved as a memorial to her father Myron H. Clark, who had been governor of New York State from 1855-56. Clark Reservation became a state park in 1926.

Mary Clark Thompson died on July 28, 1923 at age 87 at Sonnenberg. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson are interred at Woodlawn Cemetery, Canandaigua, New York. They had no children.

Sources

• Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 12 October 2019), memorial page for Mary Lee Clark Thompson (27 Dec 1835–28 Jul 1923), Find A Grave Memorial no. 11172366, citing Woodlawn Cemetery, Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York, USA ; Maintained by Mount Hope NY (contributor 219) .

See also:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Reservation_State_Park, retrieved 10:47PM EDT 10/11/2019
• Wikidata: Item Q6779224, en:Wikipedia