A record of the descendants of John Clark, of Farmington, Conn ...

64 CLARK GENEALOGY.
he insisted on being raised in bed, given his spectacles, and
on going over tlic churcli accounts with the gentleman to
whom he had transferred them ; and did go over them from
beginning to end, clearly and correctly, recalling his failing
mind by an incredible effort, that probably shortened his few
remaining hours. The incident was strikingly characteristic
of his most dominant trait,—an intense desire to fulfill to the
very utmost any obligation that lay upon him.
" ' He was a man of singular fidelity to his ideals of per-
sonal duty. These ideals were high. They covered all that
his capacity and opportunity brought within his sphere of
witnessing and doing.' * To neglect or evade any duty would
be to his mind shame and sin ; to do it., no merit, simply a
matter of course. Pic was, therefore, so unassuming that his
Puritanic principles and habits, kept untarnished through all
his western life, never won him dislike or ridicule ; he was
always respected, even by men who cared nothing for his
creed. From the time when he learned his catechism beside
his mother's spinning-wheel in a Farmington farm-house, and
guided his blind grandfather every Sunday to his seat in the
Farmington church, through all his school and college life,
his medical practice in the wild West, and his long business
life in San Francisco, he was a boy and man of peculiarly
blameless life and character."
His children were :
|
i. William Hookefi, b. April 11,1839, in Rushvillc,
111., according to Dr. Clark's bible, but a letter from
him to his father-in-law dated April 12, 1839, says,
"
This morning, about 2 o'clock, William Hooker
Clark made his entry into this place"; d. May 6,
1839, at Rushville.
* Obituary in Comjregationalist. — Dr. A. L. Stone.