Born in 1857 in Shrewsbury, Clara Denny Ward worked as a librarian in the New York Public Library system and in Shrewsbury. She preserved family manuscripts and took care of the Ward family house. Clara Denny Ward died in 1921 in Shrewsbury.
Thomas Ward paid Moses Cloughlin to build a New England style barn, but it was probably not on the Ward farm; instead, it may have been on the Henshaw farm, an adjacent tenant farm he owned.