MATTHEW STILLMAN CLARK, a well-known
and esteemed citizen of Salem, was born in the town of Westerly, R. I.,
January 13, 1816, eighty-two years ago, son of Augustus and Ruth (Barker)
Clark. The family is noted for its longevity. Grandfather Clark was an
octogenarian, and his wife also lived to be very old. Mr.Clark's mother,
who was a Barker, of Newport, R. I., died at the age of eighty-five. She
had nine children, six of whom lived to maturity. George Barker Clark went
to Jasper County, Illinois, forty years ago.
Matthew Clark received his education partly
in Westerly, R. I., and partly in Franklin, New London County, to which
place his parents removed when he was about sixteen years old. He spent
two years, 1855 and 1856, in Poquonock, where he was engaged in the sash
and blind industry. In 1848 he married Harriet M. Pratt, daughter of Joshua
and Hannah A. (Brown) Pratt, of Lyme. Her maternal grandfather, Deacon
William Brown, of Groton, was a soldier in the Revolution. Her father,
Joshua Pratt, who was a blacksmith by trade, served as a Drum Major in
the War of 1812. He settled in Salem when a young man, and married first
Abby Way, who died leaving two daughters. By his second wife also he had
two daughters, but Mrs. Clark is now the only surviving member of the family.
Mr. Pratt died at the age of eighty-three years. His widow passed away
at their old home about 1879, aged eighty-seven.
Mr. and Mrs. Clark lost one son at the age
of eleven months, Arthur Henry by name. They have three living children,
namely: Joshua P., who conducts the farm, saw-mill, grist-mill, and shingle-mill,
and who is married and has one son, Charles Stillman Clark, now five years
of age; Thomas S., also a resident of this place, and married; and Ora
E., wife of Nathaniel Clark, and a resident of this town. Mr. Nathaniel
Clark is a relative of the family by marriage only.
The original owner of the Clark homestead
was Lavine Stoddard, who built the dam and the grist-mill in 1812. The
Clarks settled here forty years ago, the farm then comprising fifty-tour
acres of land, with the saw and grist mill. Mr. Clark erected a shingle-mill
a few years later, which has proved profitable to him and of benefit to
the community. He made one hundred and fifty thousand shingles in one year,
which he sold at two and one-half dollars per thousand. During the same
year he ground eleven thousand bushels of grain, and his saw-mill netted
him two hundred dollars. The property has doubled in value since it came
into his possession. Mr. Clark, in spite of his eighty-two years, is a
hale and active man, and retains all his faculties unimpaired. He has not
even been obliged to use eye-glasses, now so generally worn; and to his
intellectual powers the years have only added strength.
Biographical Review Volume
XXVI
Containing Life Sketches of Leading Citizens
of New London County Connecticut
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1898
pgs 178 - 179
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