Clark/Field Families Collection

The Clark/Field Families Papers include material from five generations of two families. The individuals most prominently represented in the collection are:

Jonas Clark- Born in Connecticut in 1775, Jonas Clark moved to Middletown, Vermont, with his father, General Jonas Clark, in 1791. The younger Clark taught himself the law while working as a stonemason, gaining admittance to the Vermont bar in 1809. He represented Middletown in the Vermont House in 1808-09, 1813, 1815-22, and 1825-26, and in the Vermont Constitutional Conventions of 1843 and 1850. He also served as State's Attorney of Rutland County from 1816 to 1829. Clark died in 1854.

Merritt Clark- Merritt Clark was born in Middletown, Vermont on February 11, 1803, the son of Jonas and Betsy Stoddard Clark. An 1823 graduate of Middlebury College, he was at various times a Middletown merchant, postmaster of Middletown and Poultney, organizer and cashier for 40 years of the Poultney Bank, a member of the Vermont Board of Education, and a justice-of-the-peace for 44 years. He helped found the Rutland and Washington Railroad in 1847, and as its first president played a major role in bringing rail connections with Albany to Rutland County. A leading Vermont Democrat in the 1850s, Clark ran unsuccessfully for Congress (1850) and Governor (1854 and 1855). While a resident of Middletown he served in the Vermont House in 1832-33 and 1839; after moving to Poultney he was a member of the state House (1865-66), Senate (1863-64 and 1868-69), and 1870 Constitutional Convention. Merritt Clark died in 1898, at the age of 95.

Henry Clark- Henry Clark, son of Merritt and Laura L. Langdon Clark, was born in Middletown, Vemront, in 1828. He served as secretary of the Vermont Senate from 1861 to 1872, and was publisher/editor of a number of Rutland newspapers in the 1870s. He was also president of the Rutland County Agricultural Society and a trustee of the University of Vermont, from which he received an honorary M.A. in 1867. An avid Vermont historian and Vermontania collector, as well as a staunch Mason, Clark spoke and wrote widely on Vermont, Masonic, and American history. He died in 1899.

William M. Field- Born in Salisbury, Vermont, on September 5, 1813, William M. Field represented Brandon in the Vemront House in 1849-50 and the state Senate in 1856-57. After more than two decades as a merchant in Brandon, Field moved to Rutland in the early 1860s. He served as a Rutland County sheriff from 1861 to 1878, and became president of the Rutland Savings Bank in 1879, resigning shortly before his death in 1890.

Frederick Arnold Field, Sr.- The son of William M. Field, Frederick A. Field was born in Brandon, Vermont, on June 7, 1850. He was an assistant postmaster (1872-88) and postmaster (1888-92) of Rutland, a U.S. Marshall for the district of Vermont (1898-1903), and held a variety of elective and volunteer public offices in Rutland. In the 1890s he went into the real estate and insurance business, eventually founding the Turland firm of Field and Son. He also served as trustee and president of the Rutland Savings Bank in the 1920s and 1930s. Field married Lillie Clark of Poultney, Vermont, on June 3, 1873. He died in 1935, at the age of 85.

Frederick Arnold Field, Jr.- Frederick A. Field, Jr. was born in Rutland on April 21, 1881. A graduate of Amherst College, he served in the U.S. Army in World War I, and developed a successful career in insurance in Rutland. Field died in 1936.