Archives West Finding Aid

Clark Bigelow Shipman was born on June 1, 1831, in Rochester, Vermont, to Harvey and Betsey Eaton Shipman, who were teachers and farmers. Fanny Augusta "Gusta" Perham was born May 3, 1831, to John and Sarah Whitney, on the family farm--Perham Hill--near Bethel, Vermont. The Shipman family moved to Bethel in 1838 where Clark and Augusta became childhood friends. Following in her parents footsteps, Augusta became a teacher. Clark left home in 1850 to take a teaching position in a nearby village and later moved to a socialist colony near Red Bank, New Jersey. Augusta followed him to New Jersey in 1854 and the couple was married on November 6, 1855. The newlyweds settled on Shipman family land and began raising their own family. Between 1856 and 1875 the Shipmans had five children, Winifred, Gertrude, Rebecca, Henry, and Margaret. The couple purchased the Shipman land in Vermont and a farm in New Jersey, moving between the two properties for the better part of the 1860s. In 1868 Augusta purchased her childhood home from her mother and the family settled on Perham Hill. Clark Shipman, not content to stay in Vermont, heard of the riches to be had in the West and began planning a move. Augusta did not share his enthusiasm, so in 1881 the Shipmans sold their New Jersey farm and Clark and his son Henry left to find homesteading land in the West. Augusta and her daughters rented a small flat in Atlantic City where they remained until 1882 when Augusta and Maggie, her youngest daughter, returned to Perham Hill. Clark and Henry settled near the Judith River in Montana. Winifred and Gertrude, the two oldest daughters moved to Montana in 1883 and filed on their own homesteads. Augusta remained in Vermont, adamant she would never go west. Clark returned east for a visit, after being separated from his wife for almost eight years. He convinced Augusta to sell Perham Hill and, in 1890, Clark and Augusta, Rebecca, and Maggie arrived in Montana. Once there, Augusta prodded Clark to buy more and more land until they had amassed some 7,000 acres, which they sold to the Great Northern Railroad in 1906. After the sale the Shipmans moved to Lewistown, but Augusta's love of her childhood home finally prevailed and in 1911 the Shipmans returned east. Winifred Shipman opened the first school in Philbrook, Montana, and later taught in Lewistown and then Chestnut. She ended her Montana teaching career in 1886 when she married Lewistown merchant Nicholas Erickson. She was forced to leave Montana in the 1890s as a result her husband's sudden death from pneumonia. Winifred moved her children to Evanston, Illinois, where she bought a home and worked as a teacher. Gertrude Shipman taught in Martinsdale, Stanford, and Ubet. She remained in Montana until 1911 when she returned east with her mother to live in Lee, Massachusettes. Ultimately, mental illness took its toll on Gertie, and in 1916 she was institutionalized. Henry Shipman left Montana in 1884 to attend Tuffs College. He obtained a degree in 1888 and returned to Montana to work his own ranch, located near his parents. He married in 1904, sold his ranch, and returned east in 1906 to raise his family in Vermont. Rebecca Shipman studied and lived in New York as an artist--working especially in engraving--until she moved to Montana in the early 1890s. In Montana she lived with her parents and continued her art work on commission. She returned to the East to live with her parents in 1911. Upon their return to the East, Clark and Augusta Shipman settled in Lee, Massachussetts. Clark Shipman died February 5, 1913, and Augusta died July 7, 1917.