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Daniel Clayton was the father of Clara Clayton. His brother was Ulysses S. Clayton and wife was Martha Clayton.
History
Daniel collected butterflies and discovered the rare species he named Lepidoptera martha, after his future wife, while crossing the Oregon Trail as part of a butterfly expedition in 1850.
Martha and Daniel were wed on March 3, 1850 in Wyoming. When the butterfly expedition had ended, Martha moved back east with her new husband.
On October 25, 1855, they gave birth to Clara in New Jersey.[1] When Clara was 11, she was quarantined in her room with diphtheria for three months. In order to give his daughter something to do those three months, Daniel bought Clara a telescope which he put next to her bed so she could see out her window. This made him ultimately responsible for Clara's soon-after developed interest in science and astronomy, traits she shared with her future husband Emmett Brown.
Daniel tried to set Clara up with nice men from good families, but her intense interest in Jules Verne novels meant that her head was always in a book, and the relationships never worked out. Clara enjoyed the prospect of being an unmarried woman, which was enhanced by seeing her mother, formerly a frontierswoman, struggling to ignore her rebellious nature to try to act like a proper 19th century housewife.
Clara thus became a schoolteacher, which didn't surprise Daniel. Unmarried women were common in the profession, and she also enjoyed the fact that young minds were open to many new possibilities, and that they were truthful and imaginative, like herself.
Appearances
- Back to the Future III (Mentioned only)
- Back to the Future: The Animated Series
- Episode 13: "Clara's Folks" (First identified as Daniel Clayton)
- Back to the Future: Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines