WILLIAM PENN CLARKE was born in Baltimore, Maryland, October
1, 1817. At the age of fourteen he went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and
learned the printing business. In 1838 he came west on foot at the age of
twenty-one and reaching Cincinnati established a daily newspaper, and later
became editor of the Logan Gazette, in Ohio. In 1844 he went farther
west and located at Iowa City where he was admitted to the bar in 1845. He was
a ready writer and contributed frequently to the newspapers on the slavery
issue, being a “free-soiler” in politics. He attended the Pittsburg National
Convention which took the preliminary steps toward the organization of the
Republican party in 1856, acting as one of the secretaries. At the National
Republican Convention in 1860, Mr. Clarke was one of the delegates from Iowa
and was chosen chairman of the delegation. He soon after purchased the State Press at Iowa City and took
an active part in the antislavery contest leading to the Kansas war. As a
member of the National Kansas Committee he sent a company of men to aid the
citizens of that Territory in expelling the “Border Ruffian” invaders. He was
for many years the keeper of a station on the “underground railroad” and was
fearless in aiding fugitive slaves to freedom, cooperating with John Brown during
his operations in Iowa. Mr. Clarke prepared the original ordinances for the
government of Iowa City. He was reporter of the decisions of the Iowa Supreme
Court for five years. As an influential member of the Constitutional Convention
of 1857 he acted as chairman of the committee on judiciary. Early in the Civil
War Mr. Clarke was appointed paymaster in the army, serving until 1866. He was
then chosen chief clerk in the Interior Department at Washington, resigning
when Andrew Johnson began his war on the Republican party, and returning to the
practice of law in Washington, he died February 7, 1903.
SOURCE: Benjamin F. Gue, History
of Iowa from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century,
Volume 4, p. 52-3
