Archives West Finding Aid

Richard H. Clow (1847-1926) was born in Nova Scotia, Canada and raised for much of his boyhood by his sister Agnes Louise Clow Cruikshank of Boston, Massachusetts. In 1864, Richard got permission to enlist in the Union army as a seventeen-year-old and was initially placed as a 100 day enlistee with the 22nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He trained at several Boston area facilities including Readville and Gallops Island. He transferred to the 56th Massachuesetts Volunteer Infantry after his first 100 days and was sent to the Army of the Potomac outside of Petersburg, Virginia. Clow took part in some of the final battles of the war in Virginia and mustered out in the summer of 1865 after participating in the Grand Review in Washington, D. C. After the war Clow enlisted in the 13th United States Infantry and served at several posts on the northern plains. After that enlistment he lived in Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Idaho and finally Oregon where he ran a hotel and prospected for gold. Clow married twice; first to Mary Bingham in 1870, and after her death to Melinda Story in 1880. The couple had two children, Cora and Robert. A grandniece of Richard H. Clow was Bertha Cochrane Clow, a professor of home economics at Montana State University, Bozeman.