The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and
Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 714 
A portrait of Theodore W. Clark appears in this publication.
A portrait of Mrs. Maggie Clark appears in this publication.

THEODORE W. CLARK.

Theodore W. Clark, for twenty-two years a resident of Yakima county, is the
owner of a fine home standing in the midst of fifty acres of highly developed
fruit land. He was born in Windham. Trumbull county, Ohio, April 27, 1842, and
has therefore passed the seventy-seventh milestone on life's journey.
Notwithstanding this fact he is still active in the world's work, his sound
judgment and unfaltering enterprise being the salient features in the
successful conduct of an important business. His parents were John Harmon and
Abigail May (Higley) Clark, the former a native of Ohio, while the latter was
born in Massachusetts. The father was a son of James Harvey Clark, one of the
early pioneer settlers of the Buckeye state. He married Zilpha Brooks. who was
born March 11, 1787, a daughter of David and Waty Brooks, who passed through the
Miami massacre in Ohio. The father of Zilpha (Brooks) Clark died in 1841, while
his wife survived until 1844. They had located in Ohio prior to the
Revolutionary war. The grandparents of Theodore W. Clark in the maternal line
were Cyrus and Eunice (Bowen) Higley, natives of Massachusetts, in which state
they were reared and married. The Higley line is traced back to John Higley, a
native of England, who came to the new world in 1646, and representatives of
the name served in the Revolutionary war.

In 1844 John Harmon and Abigail May (Higley) Clark removed with their family
from Ohio to Wisconsin, settling near Platteville, at which time Theodore W. was
a little lad of but two summers. In 1847 the father took up a homestead sixteen
miles west of Madison, Wisconsin, in the vicinity of Pine Bluff, and there
resided until 1854, when he went to Mount Hope, Wisconsin. He afterward became a
resident of Bell Center, Crawford county, and there both he and his wife passed
away.

Theodore A. Clark was reared upon the Wisconsin frontier when that state was in
the process of its initial development. At the time of the Civil war he
volunteered for active service at the front, enlisting on the 14th of August.
1862, as a member of Company I, Twentieth Regiment, Wisconsin Infantry, and with
that command remained until honorably discharged and mustered out on the 28th
of July, 1865. He participated in a number of hotly contested engagements,
including the battles of Vicksburg and Spanish Fort, the campaign in Missouri
and the battle of Springfield, in that state. Following his return from the war
Mr. Clark resumed his education as a student in Pratt's Grove Academy of
Wisconsin and afterward attended a commercial college in Chicago. He also took
up the profession of teaching, which he followed for five years, but the
greater part of his life has been devoted to agricultural interests. He farmed
in Wisconsin until 1871, when he removed to South Dakota, where he took up
government land in the vicinity of Canton and there successfully carried on
farming for twenty-five years. or until 1896. In 1894 he made a trip to the
Yakima valley, looking over the country, and was so pleased with the
opportunities here offered that two years later he sold his Dakota farm and on
the 11th of April, 1896, established his home in the valley. Here he purchased
land which he at once began to further develop and improve. He now has fifteen
acres, of which twelve acres is planted to orchard. He raises apples, pears.
nuts, strawberries, grapes, raspberries, loganberries and cherries and has
excellent facilities for handling and shipping his products. He maintains the
highest standards of production and places upon the market fruit which for size,
beauty and flavor can not be excelled. At this writing Mr. Clark has sold his
ranch and is retiring to a beautiful bungalow on Harris and Twentieth avenue,
Yakima.

On the 6th of August, 1869, Mr. Clark was married to Miss Maggie E. Tripp, who
was born in Union Grove, Illinois, October 1, 1848, a daughter of Stephen and
Eva Eliza (Hess) Tripp, the former a native of New Brunswick, while the latter
was born in New York. In early life they became residents of Illinois and in
1854 removed to Cassville, Wisconsin, where they resided until 1858. They then
established their home at Blake's Prairie, Wisconsin, and afterward lived at
various points in that state until 1873, when they became residents of South
Dakota, where their remaining days were passed. Mr. and Mrs. Clark have a family
of six children: Harold L., born June 13, 1870, is married and follows ranching
in Yakima county; Grin A., born August 27, 1872, and now engaged in ranching in
the Selah valley, is married and has six children; Josephine, born September 30,
1874, became the wife of W. C. Wimer and died September 22, 1913, leaving three
children; Eva May, born October 12, 1876, is living in Seattle; Lulu V., born
November 27, 1879, became the wife of Jean Watts and died September 19, 1915,
leaving two children; George, born February 11, 1882, is married and follows
ranching in the Yakima valley.

Mr. Clark and his family are active members of the Methodist church, taking a
helpful interest in everything that pertains to its growth and progress. He
belongs to the Grand Army of the Republic and is a past commander of Meade Post
No. 9. He is patriotic instructor for the post and was chosen to install the
officers for 1919. Taking the deepest interest in the inspiring traditions and
purposes of the organization, he has ever devoted his time and efforts thereto
and has induced the government to furnish headstones for his comrades of the
Union army to the amount of one hundred and eight, and is thus seeing to it that
the places where the heroes of the rebellion sleep their last sleep are
appropriately marked, so that they may remain hallowed spots and shrines of
veneration and worship as well as altars before which a younger generation of
Americans may rejuvenate and rekindle that true patriotism and sacrificing love
of country which ever since the revolution has been the proudest heritage of
our republic. To the duty of suitably, marking the graves Mr. Clark was
appointed by his post. In politics he is a republican and served as township
assessor while in South Dakota but has never been an office seeker, although he
is ever true and faithful to his duties in citizenship and is as unfaltering in
his loyalty to his country as he was when he followed the nation's starry banner
upon the battlefields of the south.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in January 2008 by Jeffrey L. Elmer.
Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.