TKE
��GRANITE MONTHLY.
��A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, HISTORY, AND STATE PROGRESS.
��VOL. II.
��SEPTEMBER, 1879.
��NO. 12.
��COL. JOHN B. CLARKE.
��BY HERBERT F. NORRIS.
��The subject of this sketch, as editor and publisher of the most widely cir- culated newspaper in the state, proba- bly exerts an influence upon public opinion second to that of no other man within its borders.
Commencing his journalistic career without training and without capital, he has by his energy, enterprise and sagac- ity built up an establishment yielding him a handsome income, and made the "Mirror" the most valuable newspa- per property in the state.
John Badger Clarke was born in At- kinson, Jan. 30, 1820, the son of Green- leaf and Julia Cogswell Clarke.
His mother was the daughter of Dr. William Cogswell of Atkinson, and Judith Badger of Gilmanton, and was one of a family of nine, of whom still Survive,. Francis Cogswell of Andover, Mass., formerly president of the Bos- ton and Maine Railroad, and George Cogswell, a physician of Bradford, Mass.
Mr. Clarke had one sister, the wife of Col. Samuel Carlton, of Haverhill, Mass., and four brothers ; of the latter, three, Francis, a physician, settled in Andover, Mass., Moses, a physician of Cambridge, Mass., and William C. late Attorney-General of New Hampshire, have died. The remaining brother is the Hon. Greenleaf Clarke, the present senator from the Rockingham district, who lives on the paternal homestead at Atkinson.
Spending his boyhood upon the farm,
��where with pure air and healthy exer- cise he laid the foundation of the ex- cellent physical man he now is, Mr. Clarke supplemented his common school advantages by attendance at the Atkin- son Academy, entered Dartmouth Col- lege at the age of nineteen, graduat- ing in the class of 1843 with high hon- ors, having among his classmates the late Prof. J. N. Putnam (the only mem- ber of the class that outranked Mr. Clarke in scholarship), Hon. Harry Bingham, Col. A. O. Brewster of Mas- sachusetts, Hon. L. D. Stevens, Col. James O. Adams, Prof. Jonathan Ten- ney, and others now well known in the literary world. Of Mr. Clarke, Prof. Tenney, in his memorial of the class, says : "As a writer he is terse, piquant, and positive. His paper is leading and popular, always on time with the latest news and free discussions of all sorts, sparing neither friends nor foes when he has a point to carry or readers to entertain."
Leaving college, he was for three years Principal of the Academy at La- conia, exhibiting an aptness for teaching rarely found, and binding himself to his students by ties that will long exist, and make his name a popular one in many a household. While thus engaged in teaching, Mr. Clarke found time to en- gage in the study of law and connected himself with the office of Stephen C. Lyford, Esq., and upon leaving the Academy removed to Manchester, con-
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