Lake County IN Archives Biographies.....Clark, Wellington A. 1815 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 25, 2006, 11:34 pm Author: T. H. Ball (1904) WELLINGTON A. CLARK. Among the real pioneers of Lake county—that is, those settlers who were twenty-one years old before 1840—so far as is known to the Historical Association of Old Settlers, one only is now living, Mr. Wellington A. Clark. A descendant of pioneers from Berkshire, Massachusetts, who formed in Ontario county, New York, the settlement that became Naples in New York, a company of sixty New Englanders making that settlement in 1789, it was very appropriate that W. A. Clark should become a pioneer in Indiana. W. A. Clark was born in Naples, New York, September 2, 1815. He was a son of Benjamin Clark and Thankful Watkins, whose marriage was the first to take place in that early settlement which is now Naples, his father erecting the first grist mill there in 1795 or 1796. The tradition is that his mother's ancestors came over in the Mayflower, but the full line has not been made out. His father was a soldier and became an officer in the Revolutionary war. He is of good New England Puritan, perhaps Pilgrim, descent. He entered business life as a clerk in a wholesale grocery store in Albany. An older brother, Sanford D. Clark, was then a thriving merchant in Ohio, and as the result of a visit to that brother in 1837 or more probably in 1838, W. A. Clark made a lake voyage to Chicago, and then made a trip into the new Lake county, where he found some acquaintances and relatives, especially Adin Sanger, also Ephraim Cleveland, and others. Arrangements were made for a claim to be entered and bought in his name. He returned to the east, and among the names of settlers in West Creek township for 1839 is found the name Wellington A. Clark. He came through from the east this time across the country in a buggy, and commenced in the fall of 1839 to improve his West Creek farm where had been entered for him at the land sale "three hundred and eight-four acres." In December, 1843, he was married to an estimable young woman, Miss Mary C. Hackley, a member of a family of early settlers residing a little north of the present village of Hanover Center. This marriage was solemnized by Judge Robert Wilkinson, a settler on Wrest Creek in 1835, and who, in true pioneer style, took his rifle with him to go up through the woodland that skirted the west border of Lake Prairie, and with it shot a fine deer when near the home of the bride. About 1846, leaving farming for a time, W. A. Clark removed with his then young wife to Crown Point, became agent for some large eastern houses, especially Avers of Lowell, traveled considerably over the state, and made money. The following paragraph is quoted from a record made in 1872 and is believed to be thoroughly correct: "At Crown Point he built a good dwelling house; returned to his farm and built an excellent farmhouse; spent again a few years, including 1864 and 1865, at Crown Point; and once more returned to the West Creek home. In 1867 he erected and started the first cheese factory in the county; kept, some of the time, one hundred cows; became owner of a thousand acres north of Crown Point, and made improvements at the home place. In 1869 or 1870 he disposed of the thousand acres near Crown Point and now holds (1872) his West Creek lands, in amount thirteen hundred and twenty acres." At this time he was considered to be one of the wealthiest citizens of the county and his property, accumulated in some thirty years, was considered to be worth fifty thousand dollars. He at length gave up dairying and farming, and returned to his Crown Point home. He was at this time, 1875, sixty years of age, and for the last period of his life, now almost thirty years, he has been a constant resident in Crown Point. He has been content to remain in that "good dwelling house," one of the best in the town when it was erected, while many quite costly men-sions of wood and brick have in these later years gone up around him. His home is a landmark of the earlier years. In all this period of retirement from farming he has been an active business man, having an office where he may be found almost every day, a dealer in real estate, selling farms and town property, and negotiating loans. During his earlier residence in Crown Point he took large interest in church and school matters, as one of New England descent might be expected to do: and in 1875 ne was largely instrumental in the organization of an association for the pioneers and early settlers of the county. Of this organization, now called the Old Settler and Historical Association, he was the first president, delivered the inaugural address at what was then the fair ground, September 25, 1875, at the first annual gathering of the pioneers, and has held the same office for twenty years. He has done much to keep alive the interest in the organization. He has done quite an amount of writing for the papers of Crown Point, dealing, not with the political and social questions of the day, but rather with early American history, Spanish and French explorers and missionaries, and their early voyages, travels, and settlements. Many of these articles may be found in the Crown Point Register as late as in the year 1904. Few men in their eighty-ninth year do such writing. In 1876 he visited Philadelphia and on his return wrote quite a description of that Centennial. As a political newspaper correspondent may be placed first. Hon. Bartlett Woods: for a writer of long poems, John Underwood; but as a historical newspaper writer of Lake county, W. A. Clark stands first. A semi-centennial celebration of the first Masonic lodge of Lake county was held in May, 1904, and he was found to be one of two survivors of the charter members. In 1889 a centennial celebration was held in Naples, New York, and he was named as one of three then known to be living of the children of the first settlers of Naples. He is quite surely the only one now. According to the dates given in the records, it was fifty years before that centennial, and so fifty years from the time of his father's settlement at Naples, when, in 1839, he became a pioneer settler in Lake county. And now, of all his fellow-pioneers, he is left alone. Mr. Clark is honorary vice president of the Sons of American Revolution for Indiana. A few particulars in regard to his family may be added to this sketch. Mrs. Mary Hackley Clark still lives, sixty years older than she was in 1843., but still cheerful and cheery, sprightly in mind, a noble-hearted and a devoted Christian woman. Two sons were given to them. The older one, Henry Clark, married, commenced business in South Chicago, and soon died, leaving two children, of whom one is now Mrs. Claribelle Rockwell, of Crown Point, and the other, a son, is not in this county. The younger of the two sons of Mr. and Mrs. Clark, known as Fred Clark, a promising youth, died of typhoid fever while studying the science of medicine. They have one daughter, Helen, a charming, intelligent, lovely girl, who married, and has three daughters and one son, all married and settled in life, and she herself has returned to the Crown Point home to care, as a dutiful daughter, for her aged father and mother. The family attend and help to keep up the Presbyterian church. NOTE.—December 7, 1893, soon after the close of the Columbian Exposition, Mr. and Mrs. Clark celebrated the golden anniversary of their marriage, when, among other exercises, a paper was read by their friend, T. H. Ball, an acquaintance and friend for fifty years, that paper consisting of ten quite closely written manuscript pages, descriptive and historical, that celebration being then considered, as it most probably was, the first "golden wedding" of Lake county. Additional Comments: Extracted from: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Genealogy and Biography OF LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA, WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 1834—1904 A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. REV. T. H. BALL OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO NEW YORK THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 1904 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/lake/bios/clark602gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/ File size: 8.6 Kb