Mr. Clarke is a native of Atkinson, where he was born January 30, 1820.
His parents were intelligent and successful farmers, and from them he
inherited the robust constitution, the genial disposition, and the
capacity for brain-work, which have carried him to the head of his
profession in New Hampshire. They also furnished him with the small
amount of money necessary to give a boy an education in those days, and
in due course he graduated with high honors at Dartmouth College in the
class of 1843. Then he became principal of the Meredith Bridge Academy,
which position he held three years, reading law meanwhile in an office
near by. In 1848 he was admitted to the Hillsborough county bar from the
office of his brother, at Manchester, the late Honorable William C.
Clarke, Attorney General of New Hampshire, and the next year went to
California. From 1849 until 1851 he was practicing his profession,
roughing it in the mines, and prospecting for a permanent business and
location in California, Central America, and Mexico.

In 1851 he returned to Manchester and established himself as a lawyer,
gaining in a few months a practice which gave him a living; but in
October of the next year the sale of the MIRROR afforded an opening more
suited to his talents and ambition, and having bought the property he
thenceforth devoted himself to its development.

He had no experience, no capital, but he had confidence in himself,
energy, good judgment, and a willingness to work for the success he was
determined to gain. For months and years he was editor, reporter,
business manager, accountant, and collector. In these capacities he did
an amount of work that would have killed an ordinary man, and did it in
a way that told; for everymonth added to the number of his patrons; and
slowly but steadily his business increased in volume and his papers in