Biography
Lincoln Clark (1800-86) was born in the little town of Conway, Massachusetts. He attended school at Hopkins Academy in Hadley, was graduated from Amherst College in 1825, studied law in North Carolina and was admitted to the bar. Departing from usual custom, he decided to settle in the South, and in 1837 took his young bride to Alabama. They established themselves in the town of Tuscaloosa, the then state capital, where he opened a law office and also rode the circuit. Within a short time he was raised to the bench, was elected attorney general for the state, and served in the legislature.
But the prospect of bringing up a young family under the slaveholding system became increasingly repugnant to the New England conscience, and in 1847 the Clarks freed their servants and moved to Dubuque, Iowa. In 1851 Judge Clark was elected a representative (Democrat) to the 32nd U. S. Congress.
At the outbreak of the Civil War the family moved again, this time to Chigago, where in private practice Judge Clark endeavored to recoup serious financial losses suffered during the depression of 1857. The last six years of his life were spent in the town of his birth, where he died at the age of eighty six.
From the guide to the Lincoln Clark Papers, 1758-1880, bulk 1850s, (The Huntington Library)
