Background

Horace Francis Clark was born on November 29, 1815 in Southbury, Connecticut, United States. He was the son of the Reverend Daniel A. Clark, a Presbyterian minister, and of Eliza (Barker) Clark.

Education

Clark's early education was obtained at the Mount Pleasant Classical Institution at Amherst, Massachusetts. He then entered Williams College and graduated in 1833. Soon adopting law as a profession he studied in the office of Prescott Hall, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1837 making his home in New York City.

Career

In 1856 Clark was elected a member of the Thirty-fifth Congress and was reelected, as an independent candidate, to the Thirty-sixth Congress. Identified with the “Hardshell” wing of the Democratic party, he nevertheless dissented from the policy of President Buchanan in regard to Kansas, and supported the views of Senator Douglas. On leaving Congress he resumed the practise of law but abandoned it when railroad interests began to occupy most of his attention.

In 1837 he became a director in the New York & Harlem Railroad and at the same time began to acquire stock in other railroads in the management of which he soon began to exert an influence. He became president of the Lake Shore, Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana Railroad and of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, besides being a director in five other railroads and holding much stock in still others. His railroad holdings were so large that his operations exerted an influence upon the New York Stock Exchange, the term “Clark Stock” being applied to those companies in which his holdings were the largest.

He was also a member of the executive committee of the Union Trust Company of New York and was chairman of the executive committee of the Western Union Telegraph Company. In many of his railroad ventures he was associated with Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Achievements

• Horace Francis Clark became prominent in financial and political circles. He was recognized mainly for his work in railroad industry.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Speech of Hon. H. F. Clark, of New York

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

Politics

Clark was a member of the Democratic Party.

Connections

Clark married Marie Louise Vanderbilt on April 13, 1848.

Father:

Daniel A. Clark

Mother:

Eliza (Barker) Clark

Spouse:

Marie Louise Vanderbilt

References

• America's Successful men of Affairs. An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography
• Where They're Buried : A Directory Containing More Than Twenty Thousand Names of Notable Persons Buried in American Cemeteries, With Listings of Many Prominent People Who Were Cremated
• Memorials Of A Century: Embracing A Record Of Individuals And Events, Chiefly In The Early History Of Bennington, Vermont And Its First Church (1869)