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https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/clark-william-jr-1798-1871

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Clark, William, Jr. [1798-1871] (1798–1871)

By: Cecil Harper, Jr.

Type: Biography

Published: 1976

Updated: December 1, 1994

William Clark, Jr., legislator, soldier, merchant, and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, was born in North Carolina on April 14, 1798. He married Martha B. Wall; they had four children. In 1835 the Clarks moved from Georgia, where they had become wealthy from merchandising and farming, to Sabine County, Texas. Clark and James Gaines represented Sabine Municipality at the Convention of 1836 and signed the Declaration of Independence. After the convention Clark helped President David G. Burnet formulate a system of collecting and forwarding supplies to the army. He also served in 1836 as a member of the Board of Land Commissioners of Sabine County. He was elected to represent Sabine County in the House of the Second Congress in September 1837, but he resigned in April 1838 because of illness. Clark was still in Sabine County in April 1850 but probably moved to Nacogdoches County shortly thereafter. In 1859 he purchased the Planter Hotel in Nacogdoches, which he operated until his death, on January 3, 1871. Clark was a Methodist. In 1936 the Texas Centennial Commission placed a marker at the site of the Clarks' last home and a joint monument at the graves of Clark and his wife in Oak Grove Cemetery in Nacogdoches. Clark's son, who was also known as William Clark, Jr., was elected a representative to the state legislature in 1859 and to the Secession Convention in 1861. This man's activities have sometimes been attributed to his father.

TSHA is a proud affiliate of University of Texas at Austin
Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Notes and Fragments, January 1920. Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832–1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941).

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Cecil Harper, Jr., “Clark, William, Jr. [1798-1871],” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed January 13, 2025, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/clark-william-jr-1798-1871.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

TID: FCL18

Original Publication Date:
1976
Most Recent Revision Date:
December 1, 1994

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