BIO: David L. Clark, Cumberland County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Bookwalter

Copyright 2010.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/
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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania.
Containing History of the Counties, Their Townships, Towns, Villages, 
Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc.; Portraits of Early Settlers and 
Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania; Statistical and 
Miscellaneous Matter, Etc., Etc.  Illustrated.  Chicago: Warner, Beers 
& Co., 1886.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/beers/beers.htm
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                                PART II.

             HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA.

                              CHAPTER LII.

                            MONROE TOWNSHIP.

  DAVID L. CLARK, farmer, P. O. Mechanicsburg, Penn.  The family 
originated in England.  John Clark, the grandfather of David L., was 
born there in 1727, and came to America when a young man; he married in 
this county, and became the father of seven children - four sons:  
John, Thomas, James and William, and three daughters.  John Clark, Sr., 
entered 300 acres of land, and built the first flouring-mill in this 
county on the 

508 	BOROUGH OF CARLISLE.

Yellow Breeches Creek; lived to be nearly seventy-nine years old, and 
was greatly respected for his sterling worth.  William Clark, the 
father of our subject, was born in Cumberland County, Penn., October 
12, 1768; married Sarah Lamb, March 5, 1798, and had eleven children - 
nine sons and two daughters.  He inherited half of his father's 
property (150 acres of land and the mill), and was a prominent man in 
the community, serving as justice of the peace for more than twenty 
years.  One of his sons, Richey Clark, of Dillsburg, Penn., inherited 
72 acres of the original tract, and which has thus remained in the 
Clark family for more than 140 years.  David L. Clark, the present 
representative of the family in this county, was born June 13, 1808, on 
the banks of the Yellow Breeches Creek, at Clark's mill, this county.  
He married Elizabeth Mumper May 1, 1828, and to this union were born 
four sons and four daughters:  William, John, Andrew A., David R., 
Sarah A., Margaret J., Hannah C. and Mary E. - all living but one that 
died in infancy.  Our subject lived one year at the mill after 
marriage, and then began farming on his father's farm, near 
Mechanicsburg, where he remained eighteen years, and at his father's 
death the farm became his by inheritance.  He has resided, in all, 
thirty-four years on this one farm.  In 1862 he built his present 
residence at the Trindle road.  Mr. Clark has been a consistent member 
of the Presbyterian Church for nearly fifty years, an elder in it for 
the past twenty-five years; and is now the oldest male member of the 
Mechanicsburg Church.  Never an office seeker, he has held some minor 
offices, being a strong Republican in a Democratic county.  That Mr. 
Clark has always been true to his convictions, and had full faith in 
the Government in the dark days of its trials in 1863, is shown by the 
fact that though while he was building his present substantial brick 
residence the great battle of Gettysburg was being fought about 25 
miles away, yet he continued his building at the time of Gen. Lee's 
invasion of Pennsylvania.