Saguache County CO Archives Biographies.....Clark, Thomas C.  September 9, 1853 - ?
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Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     After passing his childhood, youth and young manhood in Missouri, and

having experience in life there in various lines of activity and amid different

classes of people, Thomas C. Clark, of the vicinity of Center, Saguache county,

came to this state in 1885, at the age of thirty-two, and located at the Jasper

mining camp in Rio Grande county.  His life began in Nodaway county, Missouri,

near the town of Quitman, on September 9, 1853, and he is the son of John and

Catherine Clark, who were born and reared in Ohio, and moved to Missouri in

1844.  The father was a farmer and also owned and operated a saw-mill.  He

prospered in his work, supported the Republican party in political affairs with

ardor and earnestness, and with his wife gave good and effective service to the

cause of religion according to the tenets of the Methodist Episcopal church, of

which they were members.  He was a man of local prominence in his section and

held in good regard by its people.  Occasionally he allowed the use of his name

for a local office in order to promote the general weal, and in all respects he

discharged with uprightness and fidelity the duties of citizenship.  Three of

their children are living, Wesley, Thomas, and Edward.  Thomas had no

educational advantages except such as were to be had in the common country

schools of his day and locality, but was obliged from an early age to work hard

and continuously on the home farm.  Here, however, he learned a useful vocation

and acquired independence and self-reliance of spirit as well as strength and

suppleness of body.  He learned the trade of blacksmithing, remaining at home

until he was twenty-one years old.  He then worked at his trade, in connection

with saw-milling in his native county, and also engaged in farming and raising

stock there with success.  In 1885 he came to Colorado, and locating at the

Jasper mining camp in Rio Grande county, turned his attention to prospecting and

mining for wages.  The conditions of life were all new to him and the face of

the country was different in large degree from what he had been accustomed to. 

But he had acquired in his previous experience that readiness of adaptation and

resourcefulness in the use of his faculties, that he would not long have felt

strange or embarrassed anywhere, and was soon as much at home in the mountains

and mining regions of Colorado, and amid the wild adventurers who then made up

the population of a mining camp as he had been among his own people on the

plains of Missouri.  A mind at peace with itself and in full possession and

control of its own attributes is not easily overthrown or disturbed by

circumstances, and this was his case.  He took his place among the fortune

seekers at the camp with as much ease and self-possession as any of them, and

wrought his portion with the rest.  So well pleased was he with Colorado, in

fact, that he determined to remain in the state permanently, and to this end, he

located part of his present ranch four miles northeast of Center on pre-emption

and timber-culture claims, and to this he has since added by purchase until he

now owns one thousand, four hundred and forty acres in all, but in three

distinct bodies.  All his land can be cultivated, and the spirit of improvement

has so possessed him that it is all fenced, provided with comfortable modern

buildings and other necessary structures, and in an advanced state of

productiveness.  His principal crops are peas, potatoes and grain, and his live

stock, which he raises extensively, includes cattle, sheep and hogs.  The whole

of his enterprise here is a gain from the waste, as there was nothing of

husbandry or the semblance of a human habitation on the land when he acquired

it, and there were only three settlers in the neighborhood when he pitched his

tent in this region.  He is not only a self-made man, but his estate is also his

own creation.  In political action he is a loyal and unyielding Republican, and

in local improvements he is a wide-awake, far-seeing and earnest man of positive

force and an inspiring influence.  On November 18, 1875, he was married to Miss

Julia E. Noffsinger, who was born in Missouri and in the same county as himself.

 They have had seven children.  Of these Perry E., Caddie and Goldie E. have

died, and Jennie M., Emma, Katie and Roy E. are living.  It is from such sturdy

and resolute stock as Mr. Clark, men who know how to do, what to do, when to do,

and who stand always ready to do, whatever may be required of them in the line

of duty, that the population of Colorado has been largely recruited, and to such

good purpose that within one generation of human life, or but little more than

this, the state has grown to colossal greatness and power in industrial and

commercial development, and achieved distinction all over the world by the

multitude of her products, the magnitude of her enterprises, and the promise of

a far more mighty future which even in her infancy is plainly manifest.  While

nature has been bountiful here beyond the wildest dreams of her pioneers, the

men and women who have sought a share in her bounty have been worthy of it and

have accepted it in the lofty spirit of true craftsmen entitled to the best raw

material attainable to work upon.

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905



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