Ramblings

In researching McDonald Clarke I've been skeptical of the stories that he drowned under an open faucet, and I've been in touch with others that also believe that they were rumors meant to bolster the image of the 'Mad Poet'. According to research Joe Fodor has done, Clarke was victim to a neurological disease.

I've also collected a few obituaries of the Mad Poet, which all talk about how he died of a neurological wasting disease-on the internment books at Green-Wood he is listed as dying of dementia. The story about drowning under a faucet of water, which is included in the circa 1870 biography, seems like a poetical invention.

Given the fact that Clarke had been complaining of muscle aches and pains and severe headache shortly before his death, I'd be willing to bet that he had contracted a virus.

Here's another reference that substantiates the fact that Clarke possibly suffered from meningitis or some other disease that in the end affected his brain.

In early March 1842, a night watchman found Clarke on his knees in the snow, interviewing a beggar. According to Carmer, "The watchman found the poet's talk so incoherent that he took him to the Tombs." (209) Clarke was then transferred to the insane asylum at Blackwell's Island, New York, where according to authorities he died of brain fever. His remains were buried in Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. (CARMER 210)