Blair County PA Archives Biographies.....Clark, John December 18, 1853 - ????
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Judy Banja http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00004.html#0000757 December 11, 2024, 6:13 pm

Source: Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Blair Co, PA: Philadelphia, 1892.
Author: Samuel T. Wiley

JOHN CLARK, 
cashier of the Williamsburg bank, and one of the foremost prohibition leaders
of Pennsylvania, is a son of John, sr., and Eliza (Thompson) Clark, and was
born in Canoe valley, in Catharine township, Blair county, Pennsylvania,
December 18, 1833.  His paternal grandfather, James Clark, was of
Scotch-Irish descent, served in the revolutionary war, and was wounded at the
battle of Brandywine.  He died in 1841, at eighty-five years of age, and left
eight children, four sons and four daughters.  His son, John Clark, sr.
(father), was born in Franklin township, Huntingdon county, December 15,
1789, learned the trade of tanner, and operated a tannery at Birmingham,
Pennsylvania, until 1828, when he removed to Morris township, that county,
were he bought a farm, on which he resided till his death, October 28, 1863,
in his seventy-fifth year.  He was a prosperous business man and a useful
citizen.  He married Catherine Whitzel, and after her death wedded Eliza
Thompson, by whom he had one son and two daughters: Robert, who died in
infancy; Mary Jane, intermarried with W. D. Reed, and died in Abilene,
Kansas, February 5, 1887: and Isabella, married to James F. Kennedy, and died
near Abilene, Kansas, March 28, 1878.  Eliza (Thompson) Clark, who died June
2, 1866, aged sixty-six years, was a daughter of George Thompson, of
Scotch-Irish descent, who was an early settler of the Spruce creek region,
where he died in 1840, at eighty years of age.
   John Clark received his education in the common schools and Williamsburg
academy, and followed farming and stock-raising until 1873, when he accepted
his present position as cashier of the Williamsburg bank, which was
established in 1873.  This institution was chartered to meet an urgent demand
for increased facilities for the safe deposit of the savings of the people of
Williamsburg and the eastern part of the county, and for the better
development of the business interests of that section.  The affairs of the
bank are conducted in a safe and methodical manner, and much of its present
prosperity is due to the vigilant and untiring efforts of Mr. Clark, whose
ripe experience, superior executive ability and honorable policy have
inspired confidence in its patrons, and won the respect of the public.
    On May 27, 1858, Mr. Clark married Mary J. Sisler, who was a daughter of
Peter and Jane Sisler of Catharine township, and died May 6, 1873.  After her
death, he was united in marriage with Henrietta Kurtz.  By his first marriage
he has six children, four sons and two daughters: Edgar Thompson, who married
Lucretia Moore, of Scotch valley, and is now engaged in milling business at
Williamsburg; Anna J., wife of C. T. Witherow, now employed as a clerk in the
office of the motive power department of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at
Altoona; John Grier, a mute educated in Philadelphia, and now managing his
father's farm; Charles H., assistant cashier of the First National bank of
Tyrone; Dean, assistant cashier of the Williamsburg bank; and Ida, at home.
    In addition to the discharge of his duties as cashier of the Williamsburg
bank, Mr. Clark gives a portion of his time to the management of his excellent
farm of two hundred and fifty acres of land, and owns a part of the large
limestone quarries at Carline, about four miles below Williamsburg, where are
employed about two hundred men.  He also owns a valuable ore bank, and has a
beautiful home and some very desirable property at Williamsburg.  He is an
elder in the Presbyterian church, of which the Clark family has been active
and useful members for the last two centuries.  John Clark was a republican
in politics until about 1880, when he identified himself with the cause of
prohibition, and since then has been one of the most earnest and successful
advocates, in Pennsylvania, of total abstinence from intoxicating
beverages.  His worth, his ability, and his great capacity for work have been
acknowledged by his party, who have nominated him at different times for every
State office in Pennsylvania, except that of governor.  He has held various
public offices, where he has always served with efficiency and honor.  He
served as a school director for twenty consecutive years in his native
township, and was one of the commissioners who erected the present
substantial and handsome court-house.  A descendant of a family proverbial
for its morality, integrity and temperance, he enjoys the proud
distinction--possessed by so few--of having never tasted a drop of any
intoxicating beverage, never played a game of cards, nor has he used tobacco
in any form for the past twenty-five years.  An earnest friend of popular
education, an untiring antagonist of intemperance and vice, and a successful
business man, and able financier, John Clark has so far filled up the measure
of his active life with useful work that will ever redound to his credit and
honor; and when--as he believes--State and National prohibition of the liquor
traffic shall prevail all over our beloved land; when a "school-house shall be
on every hill-top, with no saloon in the valley;" and when this curse of
curses shall have been driven from our land, let it be said of him, "He was
in the fight, if not at the victory..

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2001. Transcribed by Eileen

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