David Barclay McCreary was born in Millcreek Township, Pennsylvania, on February 27, 1826, the son of Joseph F. McCreary and Lydia Swan. He lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, and attended the Erie Academy before moving to Washington, Pennsylvania, where he studied at Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College) in 1848 and 1849. After leaving Washington, he became a teacher and worked in Pennsylvania and Kentucky before moving to Philadelphia in the 1850s. There, he became a lawyer and helped raise the 145th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. He mustered out in 1865, after serving with the regiment as a lieutenant colonel and brevet brigadier general. Following the war, McCreary was a prominent resident of Erie, serving several terms in the Pennsylvania State Legislature and as adjutant general of Pennsylvania. He died on February 4, 1906. He and his wife, Annette J. Gunnison (b. 1832), married on September 17, 1851, and had two children, Sophia Gertrude ("Sophy") (b. 1852) and Wirt. Wirt attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and became a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. He saw action in the Spanish-American War and in China during the Boxer Rebellion.
Sophy McCreary married Henry Alden Clark (1850-1944) on July 18, 1878, and had two children, Annette (b. 1880) and Henry (b. 1889). Clark attended the Pennsylvania State Normal School between 1865 and 1866 and the Willoughby Collegiate Institute between 1866 and 1867. He graduated from Harvard College in 1874 and from Harvard Law School in 1877. Following his graduation, he practiced law in Fall River, Massachusetts, primarily for the Edison Electric Light Company. He and Sophy moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1882, where he continued his legal practice and served in many local political offices. Later, he was elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate (1911, 1913, 1915) and the United States House of Representatives (1917-1919).
From the guide to the Clark-McCreary papers, 1815-1936, 1846-1919, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
