Bios of JOHN R. CLARK.
 
   Now engaged in the successful practice of his profession in the city
of Tulsa John R. Clark is distinctively one of the pioneer members of
the Oklahoma bar, and he has the honor of being one of the company of
one hundred persons who organized and platted the town of Stillwater,
now one of the important industrial, commercial and educational centers
of the state.
 
   Mr. Clark was born at Hamilton, Butler county, Ohio, on the 25th of
March, 1856, and is a son of Patrick and Anna (Richards) Clark. Patrick
Clark was born in the north of Ireland, was there reared and educated
and thence came to the United States in 1852. He became a successful
farmer in Ohio, was a man of fine menta'ity and good business ability,
unassuming in his ways, had no desire for political activity or
preferment but stood an exemplar of upright and loyal citizenship and
commanded unqualified popular esteem, both he and his wife having been
residents of Franklin county, Indiana, at the time of their death.
 
   John R. Clark gained in his boyhood and youth a practical fellowship
with the work of the home farm and received the advantages of the
public schools of his native state and there attended college both at
Oxford and Lebanon. He made a record of successful work as a teacher in
the schools of both Ohio and Indiana, and at Lebanon, Ohio, studied law
in the office and under the effective preceptorship of Judge William
McBurney. In 1884 Mr. Clark established his residence at Winfield,
Kansas, where he engaged in the real estate business and gave more or
less attention to the work of his profession. In 1889 he became one of
the pioneers and founders of Stillwater, Oklahoma, aided in the
platting of the town and was one of its first practicing lawyers. He
served several terms as mayor of Stillwater and also presided on the
bench of the county court. He was one of those prominently concerned in
the formulating and developing of the admirable educational system of
Oklahoma, and was a member of the first board of trustees of the state
agricultural and mining college at Stillwater. As a member of the board
of trustees of the university at Norman he aided greatly in bringing
order out of the chaos into which the affairs of the institution had
fallen. He still maintains a lively interest in educational matters and
in this connection his advice and counsel are greatly valued.
 
   In 1905 Mr. Clark became one of the pioneer members of the Tulsa bar
and in addition to his active practice as a lawyer he here served more
than five years as judge of the municipal court.
 
  At Tulsa, in the year 1908, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Clark
to Mrs. Mattie Maclay Kennier, whose father, a physician and surgeon of
marked ability, was a representative of one of the old and honored
families of Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Clark have no children.
 
   Judge Clark is loyally appreciative of the manifold advantages and
attractions of the state of his adoption and in an unostentatious way
has done much to further the civic and material development and
progress of Oklahoma. He is liberal in the support of charitable and
benevolent objects and organizations and he and his wife attend the
Christian Science church. In the Masonic fraternity his affiliation is
with Tulsa Lodge, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, while he still holds
membership in the chapter of the Royal Arch Masons and the Knights
Templars commandery at Stillwater.