With recent research, I've established the following:
John Clark b172
William Clark b1714
Elizabeth Clark b1717
Joseph Clark b1719
are all recorded as the children of Joseph and Elizabeth Clark in the Quaker BMB registers for Bilsdale / Laskill Bridge in North Yorkshire.
There is a July 1737 record of the death of Elizabeth Clark of Laskill Briggs in the Bilsdale Quaker records.
There is also a reference in a 1963 publication which quotes from Quarter Sessions held at Guisborough on 16th July, 1734: "The house lately built nigh Laskell Bridge in Bilsdale is appointed to be set apart for the worship of Almighty God by the people called Quakers, at the request of John Petch and Will. Barker" and from the Rentals' Roll for the Duncombe Park Estate "which shows that the sum of 6d. was paid in 1733 by John Petch and John Clark for a burying-place and meeting bouse at Laskell Pasture, and this was almost certainly therefore the year when the land was taken over and building begun". The author states that "Still discernible to-day below one of the
windows are the names of Joseph and Elizabeth Clark, cut into the stonework. Elizabeth's (1737) appears to have been the first burial in the place."
The current owner of the building where these names are cut into the stonework has sent me the attached photo, but it's hard to decipher the inscription. The date of death of Elizabeth certainly doesn't look like 1737.
It's a bit of a mystery! Does anyone have any idea what's going on?
