BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. CLARKE of Manchester NH ------------------------------------ Information located at http://www.nh.searchroots.com/Manchester On a web site about GENEALOGY AND HISTORY OF MANCHESTER NEW HAMPSHIRE TRANSCRIBED BY JANICE BROWN Please see the web site for my email contact. ---------------------------------- The original source of this information is in the public domain, however use of this text file, other than for personal use, is restricted without written permission from the transcriber (who has edited, compiled and added new copyrighted text to same). ======================================================== SOURCE: Manchester, A Brief Record of its Past and A Picture of Its Present, including an account of is settlement and its growth as town and city; a history of its schools, churches, societies, banks, post-offices, newspapers and manufactures; a description of its government, police and fire department, public buildings, library, water-works, cemeteries, streets, streams, railways and bridges; a complete list of the selectmen, moderators and clerks of the town and members of the councils, marshals and engineers of the city, with the state of the cote for mayor at each election; the story of its part in the war of the rebellion with a complete list of its soldiers who went ot the war; and sketches of its representative citizens; Manchester N.H.; John B. Clark; 1875 ------------------- page 392 **** JOHN B. CLARKE **** John Badger Clark was born January 30, 1820, at Atkinson, NH, the son of Greenleaf and Julia (Cogswell) Clarke. His mother was the daughter of Dr. William Cogswell of Atkinson and Judith Badger of Gilmanton and was one of a family of nine, of whom two still survive--Francis Cogswell of Andover, Mass., formerly president of the Boston and Maine Railroad, and George Cogswell, a physician of Bradford, Mass. Mr. Clarke has one sister,--Sarah the wife of Col. Samuel carleton of Haverhill, Mass., who still survives, and four brothers. Of the latter, Francis, a physician at Andover, Mass, died March 27, 1864; William C., attorney-general of New Hampshire, died April 25, 1872; and the Hon. Greenleaf Clarke, the only surviving brother, resides upon the homestead in Atkinson. Mr. Clarke obtained his preliminary education at Atkinson Academy, entered Dartmouth College in 1839 and graduated in 1843, and was offered the Latin oration, which he declined. In his senior year he was elected president of the Social Friends Society. After graduation he became principal of the academy at Meredith Bridge, now Laconia, NH and taught there from August, 1843, to August 1846, studying law meanwhile with Stephen C. Lyford. He then removed to Manchester and continued his studies with his brother, William C., until the fall of 1848, when he was admitted to the bar of Hillsborough county. The next year he went to California, sailing from Boston February 2, 1849, and spent two years there and in New Mexico, Central America and New Grenada, eleven months of the time in the mining regions, part of the time with pick-axe and shovel and part in the practice of his profession. Returning east in the spring of 1851, he stayed eight weeks in Salem, Mass., with a view of entering into practice there, but returned in the following May to Manchester, opened an office, and soon had a living business. February 14, 1852, he took charge of the editorial department of the Manchester Daily Mirror, then published by Joseph E. Emerson, agreeing to devote half of his time to it. He continued its editor from that time until the first of September, when, it having become apparent to him that Mr. Emerson, who had met with a heavy pecuniary loss in the summer, must sell or fail, he gave up his position and devoted himself exclusively to his profession. The Mirror establishment, the daily and weekly papers and the job-printing department connected with them, were sold at auction October 20, 1852, and Mr. Clarke became the owner and editor, retired from his profession and devoted entirely to journalism. Since then he has added to the Mirror the Daily American, the Weekly American, in which the Messenger and the Democrat had already been merged, and the New Hampshire JOurnal of Agriculture which included the Granite Farmer and the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. The circulation of the Weekly Mirror is now more than twenty-one times as large as when he bought the establishment and circulation of the Daily Mirror more than three times as large. Mr. Clarke was chosen in 1864 one of the delegates from New Hampshire to the national Republican convention which re-nominated Abraham Lincoln for president of the United States, and at that time was elected for four years a member of the national committee of one from each state and by that committee was apopinted one of the executive committee of seven, which consisted of Ex-Gov. Claflin of Massachusetts, Ex-Gov. Ward of New Jersye, the Hon. Henry J. Raymond of the New York Times and three others beside himself. He was bitterly opposted to the Know- Nothing movement of 1854 and 1855, believing in the largest religious toleration and in carrying out the ideas of the Puritans, who came to this country "to worship God according to their own conscience." Since 1852 he has refused to be a candidate for any office resulting from the direct suffrages of the people, believing that it would interfere with his position and power as an independent journalist, and for similiar reasons has declined office in the various agricultural societies of New England. He was elected president of the Tri Kappa Society of Dartmouth College in 1863. In 1866 he was appointed by Gov. Smyth one of the trustees of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, and in 8167, 1868 and 1869 was elected state printer. He was for two years lieutenant-colonel of the Amoskeag Veterans and was elected its commander at two different times but declined the honor. Since the organization of the Merrimack Savings-Bank in 1858 he has been one of its trustees. In 1872 he spent the summer in Europe, traveling through England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germand and Switzerland. Mr. Clarke married July 29, 1852, Miss Susan Greeley Moulton of Gilmanton NH, by whom he has two sons--Arthur Eastman, born May 13, 1854 and William Cogswell, born March 17, 1856. They graduated from the high school in Manchester, spent a year at Phillips Academy in Andover MA and then entered a special course in the Chandler Scientific School at Hanover NH from which the former graduates in 1875 and the latter in 1876. (end)