The following biographical sketch of General ORVILLE CLARK, we clip from the Sandy Hill Herald, a paper published at the residence of the General:
DIED. – At Des Moines, the Capitol of Iowa, Gen. ORVILLE CLARK, of the village of Sandy Hill, Washington County, N. Y., on the 19th of March, 1862, of congestion of the lungs, aged 61 years.
The above announcement by telegraph has thrown a gloom over this whole community. A cheerful face, a gladsome presence, an animated and useful citizen has disappeared from among us forever. For long years he has moved among us the vitalizing and energetic principal of every active enterprise - the untiring advocate of village improvement, the beautifier of the waste places, the adorner of neglected localities. To him a tree in full verdure was a living presence, a shrub or flower a thing of beauty; and he has done more than any other man to scatter through our streets their affluence of summer garniture. He was a lover of nature and found – “tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
His heart was the gushing fountain of all kindly feeling – his friendships were true and unchangeable – his hand was open as day to melting charity, and his benevolence measured by his wishes would have embraced the world.
Gen. Clark was indeed a remarkable man. With few advantages of early education, with little or no classical attainments, by perseverance and self culture he ripened into respectable scholarship. He entered the profession of the law, and in a short period worked himself up to a prominent position, and stood at one time among the leading men of the profession in Northern New York. He was a good advocate and addressed juries with great power and success, and there lay his strength. He was returned to the Senate of the State in ’43 and then and there became a leader of one of the Democratic sections. He maintained through his whole Senatorial career a reputation for talents, skill and adroitness which gave him great influence with the conservative Democracy – and by his amenity of manners, his popular abilities, and his indefatigitable industry, he preserved that influence up to the hour of his death.
Gen. Clark belonged to a family of brothers who have illustrated and adorned by the splendor of their intellect and the effulgence of their virtues all the learned professions – he is the last but one of that noble band of brothers, whose graves lie scattered far and distant, by the wide reach of intervening States. We trust there will be a re-union in a purer and better state of existence.
Gen. Clark had his faults, who has them not? Perfect purity and entire perfection exist not on this earth, they are only to be found in Heaven, around the throne of the Eternal. He had his faults, but they were dwarfed by the magnitude of his virtues, and lost sight of and forgotten in the broad lustre of his good deeds. Of all the public men that old Washington has produced there is not one whose life embraced a wider circle of devoted friends, or whose memory will be cherished longer; and among all of her honored names, there will be none enshrined higher in the affections of the people than that of Orville Clark.
– Published in the Daily State Register, Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, April 17, 1862
DIED. – At Des Moines, the Capitol of Iowa, Gen. ORVILLE CLARK, of the village of Sandy Hill, Washington County, N. Y., on the 19th of March, 1862, of congestion of the lungs, aged 61 years.
The above announcement by telegraph has thrown a gloom over this whole community. A cheerful face, a gladsome presence, an animated and useful citizen has disappeared from among us forever. For long years he has moved among us the vitalizing and energetic principal of every active enterprise - the untiring advocate of village improvement, the beautifier of the waste places, the adorner of neglected localities. To him a tree in full verdure was a living presence, a shrub or flower a thing of beauty; and he has done more than any other man to scatter through our streets their affluence of summer garniture. He was a lover of nature and found – “tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
His heart was the gushing fountain of all kindly feeling – his friendships were true and unchangeable – his hand was open as day to melting charity, and his benevolence measured by his wishes would have embraced the world.
Gen. Clark was indeed a remarkable man. With few advantages of early education, with little or no classical attainments, by perseverance and self culture he ripened into respectable scholarship. He entered the profession of the law, and in a short period worked himself up to a prominent position, and stood at one time among the leading men of the profession in Northern New York. He was a good advocate and addressed juries with great power and success, and there lay his strength. He was returned to the Senate of the State in ’43 and then and there became a leader of one of the Democratic sections. He maintained through his whole Senatorial career a reputation for talents, skill and adroitness which gave him great influence with the conservative Democracy – and by his amenity of manners, his popular abilities, and his indefatigitable industry, he preserved that influence up to the hour of his death.
Gen. Clark belonged to a family of brothers who have illustrated and adorned by the splendor of their intellect and the effulgence of their virtues all the learned professions – he is the last but one of that noble band of brothers, whose graves lie scattered far and distant, by the wide reach of intervening States. We trust there will be a re-union in a purer and better state of existence.
Gen. Clark had his faults, who has them not? Perfect purity and entire perfection exist not on this earth, they are only to be found in Heaven, around the throne of the Eternal. He had his faults, but they were dwarfed by the magnitude of his virtues, and lost sight of and forgotten in the broad lustre of his good deeds. Of all the public men that old Washington has produced there is not one whose life embraced a wider circle of devoted friends, or whose memory will be cherished longer; and among all of her honored names, there will be none enshrined higher in the affections of the people than that of Orville Clark.
– Published in the Daily State Register, Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, April 17, 1862
