Joseph Clemens: Soldier, Scientist, and Missionary by Amy Hanners and Gregory Webb

In its early years, Dickinson sent many of its graduates abroad, on military service, as missionaries, or for other various reasons.  These graduates spread the knowledge that they gained at Dickinson to other peoples in other countries.  One well documented case of a Dickinson traveler is that of Joseph Clemens, whose diaries from his years at Dickinson and many his many years abroad are now held in the Special Collections and Archives of the College.

Joseph Clemens was born on December 9, 1862, in the rugged western English county of Cornwall.   Later, his family migrated to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and then moved to Eichelsburg, Pennsylvania¹.  His father was a Cornish iron miner, Charles Clemens, and his mother, Mary Jane James Clemens.  Joe was the only one of five brothers who did not follow the family tradition and become a miner.  He also had a sister².
 

In 1890, at the age of 28, he entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania after probable preparation at the Williamsport Seminary, which was a secondary school and a source of Dickinson students at the time.  While at Dickinson, Joseph took the basic courses and studied to be a missionary.  Among his courses of study were Dutch, German, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, as well as Physics, Chemistry, Analytical Geometry, Political Economics, English Literature and Psychology.   While at Dickinson, he was a member of the Sigma Chi chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and he wrote one of the yearly histories for the fraternity.  He was the treasurer for the Union Philosophical Society and exhibited his religious zeal by being the treasurer of the Dickinson Prohibition Club.  He played in the College orchestra and sang in the College choir.  He was also a member of the Democratic committee at the college YMCA and the class poet³.

Pointing to his eventual missionary status, he was a member of the Missionary department at the College YMCA and the corresponding secretary of the Williamsport Seminary Club.  While at Dickinson, he passed most of his time with his involvement in his many activities⁴.  He also played checkers, wrote letters to friends, acquaintances, family, church, and, of course, to his fiancé, Mary Knop Strong of Muncy County, and studied.  Many of his weekends were spent traveling to Williamsport to spend time with Mary⁵.

After graduation, from 1894-1901 Clemens was a pastor for the Central Pennsylvania Methodist Episcopal Conference, and in 1896, he had married Mary.  In 1901, he decided to serve his country and became a chaplain for the United States Army.  After his commissioning, he was sent almost directly to Hawaii with the Fifteenth Infantry.  From Hawaii, he was moved to the new American possession of the Philippines, recently wrested from the Spanish in the Spanish-American War.  One of his tasks there was to bring "civilization" to the natives through missionary service.    During one of his first services, on April 13, 1902, more than a hundred locals attended.  After that, he held weekly services at the camp.  His numbers of interested natives fluctuated; on April 20, for example, there were 50 natives in attendance, though the following week the number went back up to 75.  Also, in 1902, while in Samar, he helped to wipe out a cholera epidemic threatening all there.  In 1905, he and Mary made the voyage to Mindanao, where Joseph not only continued his missionary practice, but he also began a Botanical study with his wife⁶.

Joseph began to learn Botany at his wife's prodding.  She learned the study of flora after she gave up her dreams of being a musician.  In 1915, while living in a missions camp and continuing to preach to the natives, Joseph and Mary made their first study together at Mount Kinabulu in the Philippines.  In a period of six weeks they found and documented 101 new species of plants⁷.

Later, in 1918, Joseph was forced to retire from the military due to an unspecified injury in the line of duty.  He was also by then fifty-six years of age.  Afterwards, inspired by his own missions experience, he spent five months lecturing in Pennsylvania in small towns, factories, schools and churches.  With the money he earned there, he endowed Dickinson seminary and support missions⁸.

Not having received their fill of traveling, the Clemens' returned to the Philippines in 1922.  There, he spent six and one half years doing evangelical work in Luzon.  During this time, he baptized 16,000 people⁹.  In July of 1931, he and his wife moved onward, leaving Luzon and the Philippines for Borneo.  There they began a plant expedition which was later commissioned by the British Museum¹⁰.

Still having a soft spot for Dickinson College, he and Mary created the Joseph and Mary Strong Clemens Scholarship Fund for students of Dickinson who are studying the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church¹¹.  In that same year, 1934, he and Mary had an article about them published in the Manila Daily Bulletin, celebrating the advances that they have made in the Botanical sciences¹².Meanwhile, he maintained contacts with his limestone alma mater half a world away, writing a letter to the College in 1935 that became an article in the Dickinson Alumnus.  It describes one of his trips to the Islands, and his impressions of the natives he found there.¹³

Joseph's remarkable life burnt out on January 21, 1936, some weeks after his seventy-third birthday.  He passed on in New Guinea after losing a battle with food poisoning contracted from eating contaminated wild boar meat¹⁴.  The College Alumni Magazine paid tribute in a respectful obituary in May of that year.  Mary returned to the United States, and spent the rest of her life alone,  she and Joseph never having had any children.  Upon the discovery of his diaries, she donated them to the Dickinson College archives¹⁵.

Joseph Clemens was one of many from the Dickinson family who traveled abroad spreading the knowledge gained within the old gray walls to the furthest points in the world.  During most of the early years of the College, the vast majority of these students were Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries who sought to spread western ideas to the "less fortunate."  Clemens, even if completely in this tradition, engaged his world also as a soldier for a United States making its own first move towards international power.  Finally, the curiosity he had exhibited his whole life made him the perfect scientific partner for an impressive woman botanical pioneer.  Joseph Clemens, all in all, serves as a fascinating example of the historical moment when Dickinsonians so engaged the world.

3. Poems.  Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections Dropfile, Joseph Clemens.

4. As indicated in the diary of Joseph Clemens.  Dickinson College Archives and Special
        Collections.

5-6. Dickinson College Microcosm.  1992-1995.  Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections.

7. Manila Daily Bulletin.  "Aged Scientist Brave Dangers of Mt. Kinabulu to Gather Rare Botanical Plants
        and Flowers.  Tuesday, March 17, 1934.  Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections Dropfile,
        Joseph Clemens.

8-9. Letter to Ms. Marie Ferre from N. Ickenberry.  October 19, 1995.  Dickinson College Archives and
      Special Collections Dropfile, Joseph Clemens.

10. Manila Daily Bulletin.  "Aged Scientist Brave Dangers of Mt. Kinabulu to Gather Rare Botanical Plants
       and Flowers.  Tuesday, March 17, 1934.  Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections Dropfile, Joseph
        Clemens.

11.  Letter from Joseph Clemens to Dickinson College.  February 13, 1934.  Dickinson College Archives and
        Special Collections Dropfile, Joseph Clemens.

12. Manila Daily Bulletin.  "Aged Scientist Brave Dangers of Mt. Kinabulu to Gather Rare Botanical Plants
    and Flowers.  Tuesday, March 17, 1934.  Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections Dropfile, Joseph
        Clemens.

13. Joseph Clemens.  Dickinson College Alumnus.  "Finds Thrills and Pleasures in New Guinea."  December
        1935,  Page 21.  Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections.

14. Letter to N. Ickenberry from Dickinson College. August 10, 1994.  Dickinson College Archives and
        Special Collections Dropfile, Joseph Clemens.

15. Dickinson College Alumnus.  "Obituary."  May 1936.  Dickinson College Archives and Special
     Collections.