{"id":9712,"date":"2021-02-15T12:17:47","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T17:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/?p=9712"},"modified":"2022-12-19T12:47:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T17:47:59","slug":"henry-boose-clemens-wheeling-slave-barber-and-political-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/henry-boose-clemens-wheeling-slave-barber-and-political-leader","title":{"rendered":"Topping the Town’s Tonsorial Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The Life and Times of Henry Boose Clemens:
\nSlave, Barber, Political Leader<\/h1>\n
\n

PROLOGUE<\/h2>\n
\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On February 2, 2021, we presented a Lunch With Books Livestream program<\/a>\u00a0for the Ohio County Public Library<\/a>, exploring the lives, times, and achievements of nine leaders of Wheeling\u2019s African American community during the era of \u201cJim Crow\u201d segregation<\/a>, including: barber Henry Boose Clemens; police officer William Alexander Turner<\/a>; firefighter Ashby Jackson<\/a>; attorney Harry H. Jones<\/a>; medical doctors Boswell Henson Stillyard<\/a>, Julia Katherine Pronty Davis<\/a>; Robert Maceo Hamlin<\/a>; and Alga Wade Hamlin<\/a>; and musician Will H. Dixon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This post, about Henry Boose Clemens (1843-1923), will serve as the second supplement (after Dr. B.H. Stillyard<\/a>) to our livestream video. Additional supplements will be posted soon.<\/p>\n

\n

Rising from Slavery<\/h2>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Library of Congress<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sherrard Clemens<\/a>\u00a0was born in Wheeling in 1820, became a lawyer, and was elected to U.S. Congress in 1852 and 1856.<\/p>\n

Clemens attended the First Wheeling Convention in 1861<\/a> but opposed both secession and separation from Virginia. He infamously referred to Abraham Lincoln \u201ca cross between a sandhill crane and an Andalusian jackass.\u201d He was also involved<\/a> in an infamous duel<\/a> with the son of Virginia\u2019s Governor Wise.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). Library of Congress.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first name may seem familiar.\u00a0The town of Sherrard<\/a> in Marshall County is named after him.<\/p>\n

The surname may also seem familiar: he was a cousin to a man named Samuel Clemens,\u00a0better known as Mark Twain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But none of that is why he is being mentioned here.\u00a0He\u2019s mentioned here because he was also a slave owner.\u00a0And one of his slaves was a man named Henry Boose (or \u201cBoz\u201d), who also took the\u00a0surname\u00a0Clemens. Henry and his mother, Emily, were willed to Sherrard by his father, Dr. James W. Clemens (who allegedly faked the Grave Creek Tablet<\/a>). [1]<\/p>\n

Henry Boose Clemens was born into slavery in Wheeling, Virginia in 1843.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Passage from the 1846 will of James W. Clemens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"In<\/a>
In this 1860 Ohio County \u201cSlave Schedule,\u201d Sherrard Clemens is listed as \u201cowning\u201d a 13 year old male \u201cmulatto,\u201d which is consistent with Henry Boose\u2019s age.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

An Accomplished Family<\/h2>\n
\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This ad from the 1878 Callin\u2019s City Directory says Clemens had been working as a barber in Wheeling \u201csince 1862.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"US<\/a>After the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, Henry Boose Clemens was a free man, and started working as a barber in Wheeling. [2] He\u00a0was described as \u201cpicturesque\u201d and \u201cone of the most highly respected colored residents of the Wheeling district.\u201d [3]<\/p>\n

On November 28, 1872, he married Moundsville resident Elizabeth Annie Lock [4], whose grandmother,\u00a0former slave Mrs. Mary Kent was once \u201cowned\u201d by Moses and Lydia Shepherd, and was thought to have been an eyewitness to the siege of Fort Henry. [5] She was said to be the oldest woman in West Virginia<\/a>\u00a0(and possibly the nation) when she died in 1890 at age 114. According to the newspaper account, her longevity may have been attributable to the facts that she smoked a pipe every morning, never wore \u201cspecs,\u201d and never rode a railroad car. [6]<\/p>\n

Annie\u2019s father, and Henry\u2019s father-in-law, was Denton Lock<\/a> of Moundsville, who served in the 3rd Infantry Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops<\/a> during the Civil War. Corporal Lock was killed on August 26, 1863 during the siege of Fort Wagner, a month after Col. Robert Gould Shaw<\/a>, commander of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment<\/a> was killed during the second, ill-fated assault on the Fort, as famously depicted in the movie Glory<\/em><\/a>. [7]<\/p>\n

Denton Lock had also been a barber in Wheeling before the war. [8]<\/p>\n

\n
\"This<\/a>
This view of the 1880 census shows Boose Clemens, a barber, living at 1121 Eoff St., married to a Cela with a daughter Mamie. Their race is marked \u201cmulatto.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to the 1880 census, Henry and wife \u201cCela\u201d lived at 1121 Eoff Street with a daughter named \u201cMammie.\u201d\u00a0They were all categorized as mixed race, or \u201cmulatto.\u201d [9] Ten years later\u00a0in 1890, the Wheeling Register<\/em> reported the adoption, by Clemens and his wife, of an infant child aged between 3 and 4 years, under the name Hazel Jones Clemens. The child had been in their care for 17 months and was previously at Cleveland Protestant Orphan Asylum, her father listed as deceased while her mother\u2019s whereabouts unknown. [10]<\/p>\n

\n

A Republican Leader<\/h2>\n
\n

Soon after being freed from slavery, Henry became active in Republican politics, helping to organize Wheeling\u2019s annual Emancipation Day celebrations<\/a>. In 1871, he served as an officer, along with Alexander Turner, father of Wheeling\u2019s first black police officer<\/a>, to organize the \u201cJubilee of Freedom\u201d when the \u201ccolored citizens\u201d of Wheeling celebrated \u201cthe ratification \u00a0of the Fifteenth Amendment,\u201d which prohibited \u201cthe abridgment of the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,\u201d and had been ratified by the state March 3, 1869 in the First State Capitol building<\/a> on Eoff Street. [11]<\/p>\n

\"1882<\/a>
1882 City Council election results.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1882, Henry Boose Clemens ran for city council in the Second Ward. \u201cThe colored troops made an effort\u00a0for their candidate, HB Clemens\u201d The Wheeling Intelligencer mocked,\u201d but he was slaughtered\u2026\u201d [12] In 1895, as a member of the Simpson AME Church, Clemens helped plan a memorial for Frederick Douglass<\/a>, meeting with the likes of William Alexander Turner<\/a> and Dr. B.H. Stillyard<\/a>. Clemens also participated in a mock trial. [13] In 1900, Clemens served as Marshal of the 13th \u201cColored Men\u2019s Division\u201d for the Dewey Day Parade celebrating Admiral George Dewey\u2019s heroism in the Spanish American War in 1898. [14] And in 1903, Clemens served as Chief Marshal of the \u201cColored Odd Fellows\u201d Thanksgiving Day parade, marching in front of the Wheeling City Band. [15] He ran for city council again in 1900, and 1911 for \u201cFirst Branch in the Second Ward,\u201d but, despite an excellent chance to secure the nomination and election\u201d as a \u201cpopular Republican leader among the colored voters of his war,\u201d withdrew \u201cprompted by his desire for perfect harmony among the Republicans of the Second Ward.\u201d [16]<\/p>\n

\n

A Ready Tongue for Wit<\/h2>\n
\n

Clemens\u2019s primary occupation was as a barber, in which capacity he worked at the McLure Hotel, Washington Hall, the Grand Opera building,\u00a0and the Schmulbach building all on Market Street. [17] It is likely that Clemens, due to Jim Crow, was limited to catering to a white clientele. Nevertheless, barbershops evolved into centers of social interaction<\/a> and access. [18] One wonders how many politicians and big-shots he must have interacted with at these locations, and how much he must have overheard as a trusted barber. In any event, this insider access might account for how he also came work as a bailiff at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of WV. [19]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Image courtesy the Library of Congress<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\"\"<\/a>Clemens\u2019s popularity as a barber is born out by this passage in his obituary, a rather prominently placed one for a lowly barber: \u00a0\u201c[Clemens had] a ready tongue for wit and almost every word he uttered was\u00a0filled with humor. Many were the men who enjoyed the time occupied for a shave and a haircut listening his talk. Many men recall the boyhood days when father used to take them to Boose Clemens\u2019s barber shop for a haircut and Boose never seemed to grow weary in spreading a touch of cheerfulness among all, white and colored, whom he met.\u201d [20]<\/p>\n

For men of the dusty and dirty 19th Century, it seems, a trip to the barbershop was a welcome respite and one of those rare earthly pleasures. This was evidenced by a remarkable advertisement for the Metropolitan Shaving Saloon, located in Washington Hall, and \u00a0operated by Clemens and his partner \u201cLewis\u201d published in 1879:<\/p>\n

\u201cLEWIS & CLEMENS,
\nMetropolitan Shaving Saloon, No. 5 Washington Hall Building.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Page 1<\/a> of Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Tuesday, December 15th, 1885<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is probably nothing in a man\u2019s necessities that he is so particular about as his shaving; and this can readily be made a trial or a great pleasure. To have your face manipulated, when the hirsute appendage is being removed, by cool, soft, deft fingers, every movement gentle, every stroke of the keen, well kept razor, almost unfelt, gliding over the face with a soothing, refreshing sensation. You are perfectly clean and smooth before you are aware of it \u2014 then the dextrous, experienced hands busy themselves arranging your hair so softly and neatly that you awake as it were from a pleasant, delightful dream when your barber calls \u201cnext.\u201d This is pleasure unalloyed. No where in Wheeling can this pleasure be obtained to so much perfection as at the shaving parlors of Lewis & Clemens. They have made it their aim, and with success, to render their saloon the most popular in the city. Employing none but the very best and most experienced hands, keeping everything about them neat and clean, making their place of business inviting with its elegantly furnished apartments, they have justly assumed a position at the head of the tonsorial fraternity in Wheeling. Their bathing rooms are fitted up with the most modern and approved appliances, well furnished and appointed, everything ready at a moment\u2019s notice for a delightful bath. In the hair-cutting department of their business they certainly cannot be excelled, both Boose and Tom being experts with the scissors. We gladly recommend to both citizen and stranger, in want of the services of a barber, the clean and elegant saloon of Lewis & Clemens.\u201d [21]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clemens bought out Lewis in 1899 [22] and later partnered with Austin L. Jackson in a shop at the Schmulbach Building. [23]<\/p>\n

Henry Boose Clemens died on New Year\u2019s Day, 1923 at his daughter\u2019s home in Detroit, Michigan. He is buried next to his wife at Mt. Wood Cemetery. [24]<\/p>\n