CLARK, JOHN (1786-1835)

CLARK, JOHN, businessman and JP; b. c1786; m. Mary - ; d. Chatham, 31 May 1835.

John Clark (sometimes Clarke) was a leading Chatham merchant for a number of years prior to the Miramichi Fire and a member of the committee set up in the fall of 1825 for the relief of fire victims. In 1826 he was an owner, with Francis Peabody and Isaac Paley, of the 434-ton barque Governor Douglas, which was built at Peabody's shipyard at England's Hollow. In 1827 he owned the ship Francis Peabody in partnership with Joseph Russell and John Butement.

Clark was named a justice of the peace in 1812, and he held the appointment throughout his lifetime. He was a school trustee for Chatham parish from as early as 1817 and a founding trustee of the County Grammar School in 1819. In the same year, he was a member of Fortitude Lodge, the first lodge of Masons to be organized on the Miramichi, and he was a director of the first Northumberland County agricultural society when it was formed around 1824. In the early 1820s he was a captain in the 1st Battalion of militia, and he was adjutant of the battalion in 1824. He was promoted to major in 1829.

Mary, "consort of John Clark, Esq.," died at Chatham in 1833, at age forty-three, and he died two years later, at age forty-eight. Their only son, Robert Clark, died on Cape Breton Island in 1847, at age twenty.