William R. Clarke Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1228-1229 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	WILLIAM R. CLARKE, one of the prominent and representative farmers 
and honored citizens of Spink county, has the distinction of being a 
native of the great western metropolis, the city of Chicago, where he 
was born on the 2d of November, 1859, being a son of Richard and Fanny 
Clarke, both of whom were born and reared in Manchester, England, where 
they continued to reside until 1850, when they came to America and made 
their way directly to Chicago, where they took up their residence on the 
20th of August of that year. The father of the subject is a landscape 
gardener and florist by vocation, and was long and prominently 
identified with work along these lines in Chicago, where he is now 
living practically retired, having attained the venerable age of eighty-
four years and still enjoying good health and marked mental vigor. 

	The subject of this sketch was reared to the age of sixteen years 
in his native city, where he was afforded the advantages of the public 
schools. At the age noted he moved to Alden, Minnesota, in which state 
he passed five years, devoting his attention principally to farming, and 
he then, in 1881, came to the present state of South Dakota, locating in 
Spink county on the 10th of May of that year. Three and one-half miles 
south of the present thriving village of Northville he entered pre-
emption and homestead claims, which constitute an integral portion of 
his present fine landed estate, which comprises eight hundred acres. He 
has been very successful in his operations and has accumulated a 
valuable property, his farming being improved with high-grade buildings 
and other modern accessories and conveniences, while the place is 
especially favored in its supply of water, being one of marked fertility 
and yielding large crops of grain and other products, while Mr. Clarke 
also devotes considerable attention to the raising of live stock of good 
grade. In politics he accords a stalwart allegiance to the Republican 
party, but has never been an aspirant for public office. He is 
prominently identified with the Masonic fraternity, in which he has 
attained to the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish 
Rite, being identified with the consistory at Aberdeen, South Dakota, 
and with El Riad Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the 
Mystic Shrine, at Sioux Falls, while he is also affiliated with the 
Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Modern Woodmen of America. 

	On the 16th of November, 1887, Mr. Clarke was united in marriage 
to Miss Nellie Stewart, who was born at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, on the 
8th of October, 1866, and whose death occurred on the 14th of October, 
1900. She is survived by two children, Fanny Marguerite and Richard 
Stewart.