USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > Representative families of Northampton; a demonstration of what high character, good ancestry and heredity have accomplished in a New England town . > Part 8
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No better estimate of Judge Strickland's general char- acter and his services to the public could be found than is expressed in the following resolutions passed by the church society he loved so well, and the two institutions which he served so faithfully as trustee:
Memorial of the First Church of Christ, Congregational
William Phillips Strickland at his death on August fourth was the senior deacon of this church and one of its most highly esteemed and influential members. He joined it by letter in 1865, was elected deacon in 1878, and during the fifty years of his connection with it, he never ceased to give it the benefit of his counsel and of his active cooperation in everything that would increase its power.
As justice of the district court for thirty-three years he became familiar with the worst forms of human depravity, but this knowledge of evil did not lessen his faith in the saving power of Jesus Christ; - and in the administration of justice Judge Strickland never lost sight of the reformation of the criminal.
Whether as public official or private citizen, he was respected and beloved for his fidelity in the discharge of every duty and for his unremitting efforts to promote whatsoever is just and pure and good.
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His associates on the Church Committee would therefore place upon their records this memorial of their grateful appreciation of his Christian character and of the long and invaluable service which he rendered to this Church and to this community.
Resolutions of the Board of Corporators of the Clarke School for the Deaf:
Resolved: That the Corporation of the Clarke School, in common with their fellow-members of the community, heard with sorrow of the unexpected and sudden death of their associate, Judge Strickland, who, for more than thirty years, had been a punctual and valued member of our Corporation, and held therein important and honorable offices.
Judge Strickland had the qualities and the training that fitted him to be the faithful and efficient public servant that he had been for more than half a century, in this city and county. Of exact legal learning and a strong sense of justice tempered with mercy, he dealt for a whole generation with that section of the community which most frequently calls for justice and for charity; and he knew well the limit of those two virtues, as they appealed to him in his daily practice. Long intimacy with the delinquent, the defective, and the unfortunate sometimes may harden the heart, or lead to indifference towards human frailty, vice or misfortune; but with virtuous natures an opposite effect is perceived and was noticeable in our friend's instance. No repetition of the old and sad circumstances closed his eyes to the features of each case as it came before him as judge or in his other capacities. An English poet paid to his political and religious opponent the highest tribute a judge can receive:
In Israel's court ne'er sat an Abethdin Of more discerning eyes, or hand more clean Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress, Prompt of dispatch and easy of access.
In the management of the business of the Clarke School, Judge Strickland was serviceable from his great legal knowledge, his expe- rience of many years, and his close attention to financial details which gained and held for him the office of auditor. To his family we tender our warmest sympathies, and we join with all others in this tribute to his character.
Resolutions of the Public Library Committee
The resignation of Judge William P. Strickland from the office of chairman of the Northampton Public Library Committee, tendered at the meeting held on March 11 last, was accepted with great reluctance.
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Hoping that he might be persuaded to continue his service in that capacity, it was only after being fully convinced that such hope was vain that we bowed to the inevitable.
On the occasion of the retirement from the chairmanship of the committee of one who has so long and ably filled that position, his associates desire to record the following expression of their apprecia- tion and esteem:
Resolved: That the term of service of Judge William P. Strick- land, as chairman of the Northampton Public Library Committee for thirty-one consecutive years, and for more than half the entire period since the library became a municipal institution, is in itself a significant tribute to his efficiency and an indication of the high regard in which he is held by the people of Northampton. With him at the helm they have felt that our library administration was in safe hands.
Resolved: That Judge Strickland is by nature, education and habit of mind, exceptionally qualified for the position he has so long adorned. A lover of books, a wide and discriminating reader, a sound and clear thinker, of critical, yet catholic tastes, and with a full appre- ciation of the uses and needs to which a public library should be adapted, his work as chairman has been thorough, painstaking, un- ceasing and effective.
Up to a time within the recollection of many the "Clarke Library" occupied an exclusive field as our only public library.
Closely in touch with the intellectual life of the people of North- ampton, its influence has been salutary and its usefulness unques- tioned. The good it has done is immeasurable, for no limits can be set to the radiance of knowledge as reflected by its dispersion through books.
Resolved: That Judge Strickland has brought to his work on the Committee during all these years, qualities which are the endow- ment of but few men. An understanding of the first rank, a penetrat- ing intelligence disciplined by the training and study of college days, and by long experience as a judge on the bench, great power of analysis and of precise and luminous statement, his reports to the City Council are models of concise and felicitous diction, and form the most generic annual summary of the "Clarke Library" that can anywhere be found. They abound in apt, suggestive and profound reflections upon matters and things pertaining to the inner history of the library and its ad- ministration.
The description of the functions of a public library in his report for 1912 appeals to us as comprehensive in substance and admirable in form and phrase. Though not trained as a librarian, nor professing to be a specialist in that art to which many superior men are devoting their lives, Judge Strickland has, nevertheless, brought into our service a culture as broad and rich as it is rare and difficult of attainment.
In intellectual breadth and acumen, in lucidity of thought and in clarity and elegance of statement, in the ability to present the nicest
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distinctions in terse and simple form and in easy command of choice and vigorous English, he impresses us as among the first in this com- munity within our memory.
Judge Strickland is the possessor of literary gifts which, had he not sedulously kept them in the shade and subservient to the routine of daily utilities, might have proved a source of instruction and pleasure to us all.
Resolved: That whatever may be the future of the "Clarke Library," its past is secure.
Its aims have been high, its purpose broad and ennobling, and its work in this community deep and abiding. Shining in common for us all it has not been commonplace.
The ancient library at Thebes is said to have borne on its portals the inscription: "Place of healing for the soul." Once our library was the Mecca for all the intellectually devout who desired to worship at its shrine and be healed of the ills of narrowness and intolerance and of the sins of mental apathy and indifference.
In all its history the "Clarke Library" has been a central influence for good in this community, and much of its usefulness and success is due to those who for more than forty years have guided its destinies and shaped its ends. The interests of all the inhabitants have always been its interests, and the promotion of knowledge, culture and civic righteousness its aim.
Judge Strickland has maintained the prestige and high standard of the past and has proved himself a worthy successor to the men who in a former generation laid the broad foundations of the "Clarke Library" deep in the solid basis of truth.
We trust it will not be unpleasing to him to call to mind faces and voices once so familiar, but no longer to be seen or heard, and to wander in imagination in "other groves, and other streams along."
Surely he will find new inspiration and new delight in the high ideals and noble culture which he so finely represents and which he has done so much to maintain and preserve.
Resolved: That we count ourselves fortunate that, though vacat- ing the office of chairman, Judge Strickland will not thereby cease to be a member of this committee, and that we still expect to receive the benefit of his wise and timely counsels and assistance.
Again, the following year, the library trustees put on record this tribute to Judge Strickland's memory:
To Judge Strickland the end came suddenly on the fourth of August last. Apparently in his usual good health and vigor, the sum- mons came on the instant and he was no longer of the living.
Upon his resignation as chairman of the Clarke Library Com- mittee, we took occasion to express our sense of his merits and service
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in resolutions, which were subsequently made public as a part of our report to the City Council for year 1914.
To give any adequate comment on other phases of Judge Strick- land's career would not be expected perhaps in this report, yet we may be pardoned a brief reference to his professional career.
Judge Strickland was appointed Clerk of the Superior and Su- preme Courts in 1864 and remained such until he took his seat as Judge of the District Court of Hampshire in 1882. During this interval he held the office of trial justice and acted also extensively as master and auditor in cases. Eminent lawyers tried many causes before him and his training as a judge was under fire. He met the test well. Pains- taking study of the law, close attention to the facts and careful analysis of evidence were with him in each case an undeviating habit. His mental powers and range were such that acute, ingenious, and forceful, often profound arguments and suggestions of counsel became aids to him in reaching a conclusion, but did not usurp the functions of his own judgment. His decisions were his own.
Indeed long before he was judge in name he manifested the knowledge and qualities which fitted him for that office and many of the ablest lawyers of those days regarded him as well qualified to sit as a judge in any court of the commonwealth.
It is certain that his work as Judge of the District Court gave it a high position among the local courts of the state and reflected honor upon him, his city and his county. For more than a generation his biography has been synonymous with the judicial history of the main part of the County of Hampshire.
It is possible that Judge Strickland considered the termination of his chairmanship of the Library Committee as a prelude to the final severing of all relations with it, and even with the scene of life itself. Although his work in the court showed no diminution in acumen or zeal, yet his eighty years could not be disregarded by a man of his clear discernment and candid attitude towards facts. Therefore it may be perhaps assumed that his renouncement of further continu- ance in this office was anticipatory of what he thought likely in the nature of things to happen within a time not long distant.
Judge Strickland had for the Clarke Library deep and personal affection and was as solicitous for its welfare as a father for that of his child. It is pleasant to think that he continued for more than a year after his resignation in the enjoyment of his affiliations with the library and its management and that his ceasing to be our chairman marked no other than a nominal change in his activities in its affairs, nor any severing of the ties which so strongly bound him to its service.
CHARLES N. CLARK
A People's Representative and Financier
C HARLES N. CLARK is descended from the Clark family of England, where it is both numerous and of great antiquity. The name designated one who could read and write in the almost medieval early times. It was then often the surname Clarke, Clerke, and Clearke, of such persons, but particularly of those recording and preserving deeds.
The family, in this country, is descended from four brothers, John, Joseph, Thomas, and Carew Clark, who came to America from Bedfordshire, England, in the early part of the seventeenth century. Thomas had many illustrious descendants, including Alvan Clark and his son Alvin Graham Clark, both of telescope manufacturing fame; George Bassett Clark, a famous mechanician; James Freeman Clarke, the well-known clergyman, author and anti-slavery advocate; and others quite prominent in professional and political life, too numerous to mention.
William Clark (1609-1690) is the progenitor of nearly all the Clarks in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was born in Dorsetshire, England, in 1609, and sailed from
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Plymouth to this country in the ship Mary and John March 30, 1630. The ship arrived at Nantucket May 30. Three other members of the Clark family were in the company - Bray, Thomas and Joseph, who, with William, were among the first settlers of Dorchester. Their memory is preserved by the following lines on their tombstones: "Here lie three clerks. Their accounts are even, entered on earth, carried to heaven."
William Clark continued for a long time a prominent citizen of Dorchester, but, in 1653, he was one of the peti- tioners to the Great and General Court for permission to settle in the "new country" of the Connecticut valley, and he removed his family on horseback to Northampton in 1659, through the forests which had then but one solitary trail east and west. The wife with three children rode on two panniers, and the husband, then fifty-three years of age, preceded her on foot, picking out the trail through the woods. William Clark had been named by Eleazar Mather, who was preacher at Northampton, and son of Richard Mather, the settled minister at Dorchester, as a proper person to receive a grant of land if he would come and live in the town. The story of his settlement on Elm Street together with many interesting incidents in his life at Northampton may be found in Sylvester Judd's writings and in James R. Trumbull's "History of Northampton."
Charles Nathaniel Clark is the second son, and the third and youngest child of Charles and Mary (Strong) Clark. The union of these two old families (Clark and Strong) was considered at the time interesting from the fact that the appearance of both of them in Northampton was contem- poraneous with its settlement; and the identity of interests so established has been perpetuated even to this day in their descendants.
Charles N. Clark
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Charles N. Clark
The subject of this sketch was born on his father's farm on South Street April 4, 1853. He attended the common schools and graduated from the high school in 1869, from Amherst College in 1873 with the degree of A.B., and was given the degree of A.M. in 1876. After graduation he taught one year in the Free High School of Brimfield. Then he began the study of law with Delano and Hammond in Northampton. He was admitted to the bar in 1877, and to the practice of law in all the courts in 1880. He opened a law office in Northampton and soon gained an extensive practice in all the courts of the state and of the United States district and supreme courts.
His general ability and business sagacity, however, re- sulted in calls outside the profession, and he was made treas- urer of Smith College in 1888, and has since been actively identified with the financial and general material progress of that institution. He was made a director of the Hampshire Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and was chosen one of the trustees of the Northampton Institution for Savings, and President of the Northampton Gas Lighting Company.
In religious matters Mr. Clark naturally followed the professions of his forefathers and found his expression therein in the "Old" First Church of the town. In this church he has been a prominent member, and one of the board of as- - sessors of the parish.
While not actively interested in politics, he has obeyed the call of his party constituency (Republican) and his nomi- nation by it and confirmation by vote of the people followed. He was called to represent the First District of Hampshire County in the Legislature of 1883-4-5 and was a State Sen- ator in 1887 and 1888. He served on several committees, including those of the Hoosac Tunnel, Troy and Greenfield Railroad, claims, judiciary, public service, and mercantile
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affairs; and his record as a legislator was approved by his constituents, as shown by comments in the public press of his native town, during his incumbency.
Mr. Clark has never married. He now gives his time almost entirely to the interests of Smith College.
MERRITT CLARK
Veteran Merchant
A N interesting review of Northampton history for nearly a century might appropriately accompany any story of the life of Merritt Clark. He is the city's oldest merchant and yet, withal, at the time of this writ- ing, one of the youngest in spirit and mental energy.
Mr. Clark has spent his winters in Florida for many years, and he always goes and comes in cheerful spirits. When he arrived home from one of his trips a while ago, he said: "I am thankful that I am privileged to live in so good a community as Northampton. Some people do not seem to appreciate the place, but to me the city is ideal, and the greatest pleasure I have is to return each spring from the South and, with a handshake, to have friends tell me that they are glad to see me back again. This Connecticut valley, especially between Hartford and Brattleboro, with all the privileges and opportunities which the inhabitants may avail themselves of, is certainly the height of civili- zation."
Mr. Clark may properly be called the dean of North- ampton Main Street merchants, for he has been in business on what was once called "Shop Row," as clerk and proprie-
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tor, for over seventy years. He is still interested in the busi- ness, and, when in Northampton, he is seen at the old stand almost every day in the morning hours. The rest of the day he is generally at his residence on Elm Street. His home there is one of the landmarks of the city. It was built long ago, and was once occupied for several years by Rev. Mr. Silsbee, the minister of the Unitarian church. When the writer called on Mr. Clark recently, he found him very much interested in the then current talk all over the country, about "preparedness." To him it recalled his early days when, being an earnest advocate of a local militia company, he was many times ridiculed for favoring such an institu- tion. But he lived to be commended by those who at first condemned him, and it was not long after the outbreak of the Civil War that one of the most prominent citizens, who had once laughed at his concern for the militia, took occasion to thank him for what he had done and declare that he had more foresight and wisdom than most men of his time. So, for the present generation, Mr. Clark shows just as much interest in this line as of old, and with a kindling eye he has lately again declared "preparedness" to be the thing necessary.
Merritt Clark is a native of Milford, Connecticut, where he was born November 7, 1829. He can trace his ancestry back to the year 1610. "Deacon" George Clark, settler and planter, came from England and settled in Milford, Connecti- cut, in 1639. He had stopped for a short time with the pioneers at Wethersfield, before going to Milford. He was born in England in 1610, and died in Milford in 1690. This George Clark was the first settler to establish his home out- side of the stockade at Milford, and he received for his courage a grant of forty acres of land, which he and his sons began to cultivate.
Merritt Clark at Home
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The Merritt Clark Homestead Corner of Elm Street and Round Hill Road
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Merritt Clark
David Clark, who was born in 1751, and died July 17, 1831, was grandfather of Merritt Clark, and Anna Clark, who was born in 1755, and died February 14, 1812, was his grand- mother. Mr. Clark's father was Enoch Clark, a farmer, whose marked characteristics were common sense and an even temperament. Enoch Clark married Mehitable Bald- win of Milford, Connecticut, and from these parents of New England thrift and energy Merritt Clark undoubtedly largely drew those qualities and characteristics which enabled him to make a success in life.
The boy Merritt had only a common school education. He made things lively on his father's farm until, in 1846, at seventeen years of age, he came to Northampton. Here he began to learn tailoring with Charles Smith and Company, tailors, on the very spot where the present firm of Merritt Clark and Company have their large and well arranged es- tablishment. In 1852 Mr. Clark bought out the interest which Marvin M. French had in the firm, and the new firm consisted of Charles Smith and Merritt Clark. J. H. Prindle, a clerk in the Smith and Clark store, came into the firm in 1854, and the new firm was Smith, Clark, and Prindle, but this business name lasted only about two years, when Mr. Smith withdrew. A short time later Mr. Clark bought out Mr. Prindle's interest, and for ten years he conducted the business alone. His nephew, Orman S. Clark, who previ- ously had been employed as a clerk, was taken into the firm in 1866. After Orman's death in 1891, Orman's son, Howard, who had been trained in the business, took his place and shortly afterward came to full charge of the concern. This permitted the founder of the house to retire from active busi- ness about twelve years ago. Since then Mr. Clark has spent his winters at Tarpon Springs, Florida. Besides his clothing business, Mr. Clark holds considerable real estate in the city.
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He is the oldest business man on Main Street and probably the oldest in the county. He has always taken a keen interest in Northampton affairs and enterprises, and in those of the state and nation. For ten or twelve years he was in the state militia, Lieutenant of Company C of the 10th regiment, and prior to the Civil War he aided in drilling the company and often visiting West Point to obtain in- struction in military tactics. In politics he is of the Demo- cratic faith. He has never professed his belief in any par- ticular religious creed, but he attends the First Church. He held several offices with the fire department when the old "Torrent" was queen of the waters. This and the "Deluge" were then the only Northampton fire extinguishers, except wooden hand buckets, owned by the town. He was foreman of the "Torrent" in its palmiest days. At one time he was an overseer of the House of Correction with the late Daniel Kingsley. He was a director of the Hampshire Mutual Fire Insurance Company fifteen or sixteen years, trustee of the Northampton Institution for Savings about the same length of time and was for several years a director of the Hampshire County National Bank. He has been considered one of the safest and soundest of our business men. Withal he is a man of wide information, being a keen observer of men and things, and at one time he traveled extensively in Mexico and Europe.
When asked if he could give any suggestion from his expe- rience that would be useful to young men, he replied: "Be honest, be truthful, be industrious and persevering."
March 16, 1859, Mr. Clark married Sarah Josephine King, daughter of Elisha W. King and Margaret Vander- voort. Mr. King was an eminent member of the New York bar, and grandson of John King who emigrated from Eng- land to Salem in 1650, whence he moved to Southampton,
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Sideboard and Collections at Merritt Clark's Home
The mirror above the sideboard came originally from the house of General Joseph Hooker. The castor in the center of the sideboard formerly belonged to Governor Caleb Strong.
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A plate and teapot of old English ware
A Chinese tea caddie and a cup and teapot of old English spode Valuable Tableware in the Merritt Clark Collection
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Long Island, in 1654. Mr. and Mrs. Clark had no children. She died July 12, 1909. Since her death, Mr. Clark's niece, Miss Minnie D. Clark, has been his constant companion, both in his Northampton home and on his journeys South. She is the daughter of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Nancy M. Clark.
HAYNES HANFORD CHILSON
An Old-time Citizen, Honored by Many Public Trusts
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