Appendix E: Biographies

Klokov

The available service records for Captain Petr Petrovich Klokov (b. c. 1817) at the Russian State Historical Archives in St. Petersburg are dated 1842, 1844, 1849, and 1856.1 Klokov belonged to the gentry of Archangel Province; his parents owned a stone house and a sawmill in Archangel. He was of the Lutheran faith. At the time of Anna Whistler’s diary entry of 6/18 June 1845, he was twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old.

He became a cadet at the Institute of the Corps of Transport Engineers on 18 July 1834 (all dates Old Style) and was promoted to sub-ensign on 15 July 1836. He was made ensign on 13 May 1837 at the age of twenty. On 4 June 1838, he was made second lieutenant and on 21 May 1839 lieutenant. His records show that he had command of French and German. He was in the Institute of the Corps of Transport Engineers at state expense and was retained at the Institute to continue his course of studies. He was assigned to active service in the First Administration of Roads in the Environs of St. Petersburg on 11 May 1839. He was under arrest from 17 February through 16 April 1841 for “striking a blow with his hand in the face” of a non-commissioned officer of the Life Guards Sapper Battalion named Fokin, but on 16 April 1846 on the basis of articles I and IV of a Most Gracious Manifesto, was released from undergoing trial and investigation and was freed.

On 23 April 1842, he was put at the disposal of the Commission established to build the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway. He was assigned to work in the Southern Administration of the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway on 23 May 1842. He was made captain on 6 December 1843. By order of the head of Transport and Public Buildings, Count P.A. Kleinmikhel’ (see Image 243), he was put at the disposal of the Department of Railways and assigned to Major Whistler (see Images 7–8, 21) on 28 July 1844.2 He was put in charge of the experimental railway from St. Petersburg to the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works (see Images 223–225) and to Kolpino on 28 July 1846. On 5 March 1847, he was awarded the Order of St. Anne (3rd class) because of the orderliness and organization evident at the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works, which Nicholas I (see Images 420–423) had visited the previous day. On 19 February 1849, he was made senior officer in the Department of Projects and Estimates of the Department of Railways of the Corps of Transport Engineers. On 27 September 1851, he was made acting director of the First Department of the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway.

On 20 November 1852, an accident occurred on the railway, for which he was held responsible. An evening freight train was heading from St. Petersburg to Moscow with an excess number of wagons and fewer conductors (i.e., brakemen) than prescribed by the operating regulations. The train was therefore divided internally into two halves, and at one of the stations there was a collision in which a brakeman was killed and locomotives, tenders, and several wagons were somewhat damaged. Moreover, these state-owned wagons were carrying hay that Captain Klokov and the chief mechanic had mown for their own use, taking it from two gardens at the St. Petersburg Locomotive Building, gardens already laid out but not yet turned over by the contractor to the State. Because Klokov had failed to provide the proper supervision, on 28 March 1853 the Head of Transport and Public Buildings ordered that, in addition to being held under arrest during the course of his trial, Klokov was to spend a further month-and-a-half in the guardhouse. There are no details in these service records of the outcome of the trial.

Sometime between 1849 (when he is still listed as a bachelor) and 1856, he married Natalia Petrovna Mezhueva, the daughter of a deceased civil servant. No children are indicated. His father-in-law had attained the rank of collegiate secretary (10th grade). On 22 May 1853, he was appointed by the head of Transport and Public Buildings to be attached to the Administration of the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway. On 24 August 1853, he was appointed head of the Gatchina Station of the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway. On 31 October 1853, he was assistant to the head of traffic on the St. Petersburg–Warsaw Railway between St. Petersburg, Tsarskoe Selo, and Gatchina. On 2 March 1856, with the permission of the head of Transport and Public Buildings, he was assigned to handle foreign correspondence for the Department of Railways. In October 1857, he was sent by William Louis Winans to meet John H.B. Latrobe in Stetting, when the latter came as counsel to the Winans brothers at the Alexandrofsky Head Mechanical Works, and accompany him to St. Petersburg. It was not possible to find further reports on Klokov’s service record nor further printed sources mentioning him, nor to ascertain his date of death.

Klokov’s behavior during his career was erratic. It is interesting to note that in 1842 his ability was rated as “extremely good” but his performance as only “quite diligent.” His performance approximated his ability more as time passed. He apparently learned to control his temper after the incident of striking the non-commissioned officer. His failure to provide proper supervision resulting in the death of a conductor was serious. His dishonesty, while not excusable, amounted to pilfering when compared to the dishonesty with which the Russian civil service and Russian life in general were rife.

Whether he was the Russian nobleman with whom Deborah Delano Whistler (see Images 17–19, 21) had an unhappy love affair, causing her to leave St. Petersburg in May of 1847 with the Bliss family, is taken up in the biography of Deborah Delano (Whistler) Haden in “The Whistlers as They Were in the 1840s.”

Notes