Abraham Clark was an American surveyor, lawyer, farmer, and politician. He was a Member of the United States House of Representatives from New Jersey from 1791 to 1794.
Background
Abraham Clark was born on February 15, 1726 in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, United States. About 1678 one Richard Clark, shipwright, of Southold, Long Island, moved to Elizabethtown, New Jersey. His grandson Thomas, charter alderman and patriotic magistrate of Elizabethtown, became in due time the father of Abraham, his only child, locally known later as “Congress Abraham” to distinguish him from others of the same name. Young Abraham was studious by nature, too frail for farm work, and much indulged by his parents.
Education
Clark got only a local smattering of “education in the English branches”. His father realized that he had a natural grasp for math so he hired a tutor to teach Abraham surveying. While working as a surveyor, he taught himself law.
Career
Abraham Clark started his own law practice in Elizabethtown. His zeal in giving legal advice free, and his preference for the common law, made him known as “The Poor Man’s Counsellor” and deepen the suspicion that he never was admitted formally to the bar.
Clark entered politics as a clerk of the Provincial Assembly. Later he became the high sheriff of Essex County. In December 1774, adhering to the patriot cause, he became a member of the New Jersey Committee of Safety and later its secretary. In May 1775, he sat in the New Jersey Provincial Congress which drafted the State’s first constitution, and appointed him, June 22, 1776, a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. He had been outspoken for separation from Great Britain and was sent to uphold that view at Philadelphia where he voted for and later signed the Declaration of Independence.
Despite continued “want of health” and numerous domestic distractions, the British forces on Staten Island being only a few miles from his home, he was thrice rechosen to Congress, besides interim service in the New Jersey legislature. His opposition to lawyers’ privileges, to “commutation of pay” for army officers, and to the unlimited issue of paper money, had made him numerous and formidable enemies in politics, but these seem to have affected neither his industry nor his influence. He served on innumerable committees, prepared many reports in his own hand, and was almost invariably present to vote. He was especially active in keeping the disaffected out of public office and in raising supplies for Washington’s army.
In 1784 The New Jersey legislature passed “An Act for Regulating and Shortening the Proceedings of the Courts of Law. ” This was popularly known as “Clark’s Law”. After the Revolution, New York discriminations against New Jersey commerce led Clark to remonstrate with Governor Clinton, to urge closer union among the states, and to go as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention in 1786. Representing the broader views of his state as to the constitutional problem confronting the nation, he was elected to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, but ill-health prevented his attendance. Opposed to the new Constitution until after the adoption of the Bill of Rights, he was kept out of the First Congress, serving 1789-1790 as a commissioner to settle New Jersey’s accounts with the Federal Government, but was elected to the Second and Third Congresses.
Achievements
Religion
Abraham Clark was a member of the Presbyterian Church.
Politics
While in politics, Clark advocated for separation from Great Britain.
Connections
Clark married Sarah Hatfield circa 1749, with whom he had 10 children. Ten years after his death she was thriftily conducting his ancestral farm located at what is now Chestnut St. and Ninth Ave. , Roselle, New Jersey. With her solid cooperation he was able to take part in nearly thirty years of public service.