Greenleaf Clark was an American jurist. He served as an associate justice of the supreme court of Minnesota from 1881 to 1882.
Background
Greenleaf Clark was born on August 23, 1835 in Plaistow, New Hampshire, United States. He was of Puritan stock, being a lineal descendant of Nathaniel Clarke who settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, early in the seventeenth century. His parents were Nathaniel Clark, a resident of Plaistow, prominent in public affairs, and Betsey (Brickett) Clark.
Education
Clark received his early education in Plaistow and at Atkinson Academy, New Hampshire, from which he proceeded in 1851 to Dartmouth College, graduating in 1855. After reading law for a short time at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he completed his course at the Harvard Law School, graduating with the Bachelor of Laws degree and was admitted to the Suffolk bar the same year.
Career
About 1857 Clark commenced his law practise at Roxbury, Massachusetts, but in the fall of 1858 removed to St. Paul, Minnesota. At first entering a law office as clerk, he was connected with several firms during the next seven years. In 1865 he became a partner of Horace R. Bigelow, and was joined in 1870 by Judge Flandrau, the firm name becoming Bigelow, Flandrau & Clark. From the outset they were associated with important corporation interests. They held a retainer as general counsel for the St. Paul & Pacific Railway Company and its subsidiaries, prior to and throughout its reorganization as the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company in 1880. They were attorneys for the Minnesota Central, the St. Paul & Chicago, and the Southern Minnesota Railway companies, and also the Milwaukee & St. Paul system, later known as the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. The majority of these were “land grant” companies, and the volume of legal business accruing in connection with their operation was enormous.
Clark’s special province was in connection with organization, acquisition of rights of way, and construction contracts, including the preparation of trust deeds, securities, and contracts. His draftsmanship was superb, and “his important railway contracts and mortgages were models”. He was appointed associate justice of the supreme court of Minnesota, March 14, 1881, but retired on January 12, 1882.
On leaving the bench he resumed practise in St. Paul, and, though not holding any general retainers, was again engaged mainly in legal work for railroad corporations. He retired from practise in 1888, and died in 1904, at Lamanda Park, near Los Angeles. As a lawyer Greenleaf Clark was not erudite but eminently safe. Endowed with an infinite capacity for taking pains, he explored and exhausted every contingency and possessed remarkably sound judgment.