Background
Clark Fisher was the eldest son of Mark and Virtue Gage Fisher, and was born at Levant, Maine.
Clark Fisher was the eldest son of Mark and Virtue Gage Fisher, and was born at Levant, Maine.
He prepared for college in the schools at Newport, Maine, and at the Trenton Academy in Trenton, New Jersey, and he was graduated from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1858 with a degree in civil engineering.
He entered the United States Navy in May of the following year as a third assistant engineer. He was promoted to second assistant engineer in July 1861, and to first assistant engineer in May 20, 1863. During the Civil War he took part in the engagements at Whitehouse Landing, and at Pocotaligo in 1862. He was with the forces which attacked Morris Island in Charleston Harbor and bombarded Fort Sumter. He participated also in the attack on Fort Wagner and Stone Inlet in 1863; in the advance up the James River; and in the attack on Howlett’s, and the Dutch Gap Canal in 1864. In 1862 he was taken a prisoner at Magnolia Station, S. C. , but escaped after being confined but one night. His younger brother, Otis, was killed at Fort Fisher. After the war was over, he did some brilliant experimental work for the navy at the Brooklyn Navy Yard which established the value of oil as a fuel. He originated the devices which were used for the economic combustion of this fuel in the experiments. He received his appointment as chief engineer, U. S. N. , on Jan. 23, 1871, but resigned the following March on account of the death of his father who had been one of the founders of the Eagle Anvil Works at Trenton, Second Presbyterian Church, Madison, Ind. , when on July 8, 1879, he was elected president of Hanover College. The institution was financially embarrassed and its existence in jeopardy, but under his administrative skill it was kept alive through the crisis, and as the years went on it increased in endowment, buildings, and efficiency.
From 1874 till 1891 scarcely a year elapsed without the issuing of some new patent to Clark Fisher which meant new products for or improvements on old products of the Eagle Works. His first patents were for a railroad spike and a cast-iron anvil.
Later patents included rail joints, a hydro-pneumatic engine, combined anvil and vise, a spring motor, lifting jack, and a railroad tie. The Eagle Anvil Works, established by Mark Fisher and developed for thirty years by Clark Fisher, are still doing a business in Trenton.
His last years were spent in travel and at his home “Whitehall, ” at Flushing, Long Island, but he kept an active interest in business until his last illness.
In 1898 Fisher married Harriet White in London.