CUYAHOGA COUNTY OHIO - OBIT:  CLARK, M. B. 
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From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sunday, March 10, 1901

ROMANTIC LIFE; PEACEFUL DEATH.
M. B. Clark, a Pioneer, Dies at his Glenville Home.
Was at One Time an Employer of John D. Rockefeller

M. B. Clark, a pioneer resident of this vicinity, and one of the wealthiest 
citizens of Glenville, died at 6 o'clock last evening. Death was due to grip 
[flu] and a complication of diseases, for which the grip had paved the way. Mr. 
Clark was seventy-three years old last November. Grip seized him about two weeks
ago, but Mr. Clark's illness was not regarded as serious until four or five days
ago, since which time his life hung on a slender thread. The end came peacefully. 
Mrs. Clark and her two stepdaughters, Mrs. Teagle and Mrs. Coit, and the two 
sons-in-law were at the bedside at the last moment.

Mr. Clark was well known in Cleveland and vicinity, and leaves a host of friends 
to mourn his loss. He was a man of sterling worth and qualities and faithful 
always to the principles which were the mainsprings of his actions. Honesty and 
integrity were his salient virtues and "live and let live" his motto.

Funeral services over the remains will be held Tuesday, at 2 p.m., at the late 
residence, corner of St. Clair street and Eddy road. Rev. Dr. J. S. Rutledge of 
the M. E. church of Glenville will officiate. While Mr. Clark had always 
retained his membership in a Wesleyan Methodist congregation, he nevertheless 
attended services at Dr. Rutledge's church, and was for many years on intimate 
terms with the pastor. The remains will be laid to rest in Lake View Cemetery.

The story of Mr. Clark's life contains many elements of romance. He was born in 
England and came to this country without a penny fifty-two years ago. Since 
which time he has been able to amass a fortunate estimated at half a million. 
That he could have become a millionaire or a multi-millionaire had he cared to 
is conceded by all those who were on familiar terms with him; and that he was 
content to retire from business at an age when other men in the reins prefer to 
multiply their wealth is due to the fact that he held personal worth and 
character in higher esteem than dollars and cents. Mr. Clark first set foot on 
American soil at Boston, Mass. The first night he spent there he slept in a 
woodshed on a buffalo robe by virtue of the kindness of a gentleman whose name 
has since been forgotten. Next day he proffered his services to his benefactor. 
He was willing to do any kind of work and was employed for a time as chore boy. 
Later he ran errands and was employed as jack-of-all-trades by farmers in the 
vicinity of Boston. Some months later he left Boston for Cleveland, having 
learned in the meantime that some families from his native country had settled 
here and were prosperous. He had also in the meantime read in a paper in Boston 
the since famous advice of Horace Greeley, namely, "Go west, young man."

When Mr. Clark landed from a boat in Cleveland from Buffalo all his earthly 
belongings were contained in a red bandana handkerchief.

He at once sought employment and found it--rail splitting. No work was 
dishonorable in his eye, and for two years or more he cut cord wood in and about
 Lorain. The wood which he cut and split he himself hauled to a profitable 
market in Cleveland. He saved money then--as much as he could--one of his early 
economic theories being that of the money he came by in his honest way, no 
matter how little, he must anyway save some. Having laid by a small sum for 
future contingencies, Mr. Clark drifted into canal work. He toiled on the Ohio 
canal, the waterway on which the prosperity of the Cleveland of today has been 
founded, and saw a way to add to his savings by buying grain, fruits and 
vegetables, hauling them to the city on the canal and marketing them here. Then 
and there he laid the foundation of his ventures in the grain elevator business 
and the flouring business which John D. Rockefeller, the oil king and head of 
the Standard Oil Co.

The oil king of the twentieth century, whose vast belongings and projects 
astound the world, began his career as a clerk in one of Mr. Clark's stores in 
Cleveland. Eventually John D. Rockefeller became his partner in the oil business
and the two organized Standard Oil Co.

Mr. Clark occasioned a dissolution of the partnership later. The assignment of 
one of the competitors of the Standard Oil Co. in its early days inspired Mr. 
Clark to ask for a dissolution of partnership.

Rockefeller gave Mr. Clark $100,000 for his interest in the Standard Oil Co. at 
that time, and by virtue of judicious investment the fortune was augmented until
now it is said to be $500,000.

Mr. Clark next lent all his efforts to the business of the Union Elevator Co. 
and since then became prominently identified with the Co-Operative Stove Co. He 
was also a heavy stockholder in the Sheriff Street market house. He owned a farm
of 160 acres in Madison and seventy-six acres in Glenville.

Mr. Clark retired from active service some time ago to a comfortable and 
taste_________ in Glenville. He was twice married __________ his only children, 
two daughters, _________ survive were of the first marriage. His second wife was
Miss Semlow of ___________. [Blanks occur where the newspaper was folded when 
microfilmed and thus some words are obscured.]

NOTES: Maurice's parents were Robert Clark and Eliza Neate Clark of Malmesbury, 
Wiltshire, England. Maurice arrived in this country in June 1848. There is a 
story that he fled his hometown after hitting his boss following an argument. 
In 1851 he became a citizen of the US. Maurice married a native of England, 
Mary Clement, in 1853, and as shown in the 1860 US Census, they had three 
children, Belle Amelia (or Amelia Belle), who was 6; Herbert, 3; and Edwin, 5 
months. After the census was taken, children Cassius and Emeline were born. 
Before the Civil War, Maurice was an active abolitionist. Later on, he ran for 
mayor of Cleveland but was not elected; held a position on the City Council for
a few years in the late 1860s or early 1870s. Mary, Maurice's first wife, died
in 1881, and at some point after that he married Mary Semlow. Maurice's 
survivors not only included his daughters, Belle Teagle and Emeline Coit, but 
his son Cassius's widow Fanny Clark, and some grandchildren (names unknown).