Daniel Clark (1622-1710) was the fourth

Secretary of the Colony of Connecticut The secretary of the State of Connecticut is one of the constitutional officers of the U.S. state of Connecticut. (The definite article is part of the legal job title.) It is an elected position in the state government and has a term length of four ...

, from 1658-1664 and 1665-1667, and holder of various offices in colonial

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

. He has been known as the "great grandfather of Governors" given the number of his descendants who have held that position in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Clark was born in

Tarvin Tarvin is a village in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It had a population of 2,693 people at the 2001 UK census, rising to 2,728 at the 2011 Census, and the ward covers about . ...

Cheshire, England Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county town ...

in 1622. In 1639, he immigrated to America with his uncle and resided in

Windsor, Connecticut Windsor is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, and was the first English settlement in the state. It lies on the northern border of Connecticut's capital, Hartford. The population of Windsor was 29,492 at the 2020 census. P ...

. He was a representative to the General Court from 1657-1661, member of the Court of Assistants from 1662-1664, in addition to serving as Secretary of the Colony. He was also a member of the committee to appoint and commission officers of the militia and the Committee to Advise the Indians. In 1662, he was one of the 19 signers and grantees of the Connecticut Charter, and in 1664 he was commissioned as captain in the Colonial Troops, serving in

King Philip's War King Philip's War (sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, Pometacomet's Rebellion, or Metacom's Rebellion) was an armed conflict in 1675–1676 between indigenous inhabitants of New England and New England coloni ...

. He died in Windsor, Aug 10, 1710.

Family

He was the son of Sabbath Clark (Rector of Tarvin Chapel) and Elizabeth (Overton) Clark (granddaughter of Bishop William Overton and great granddaughter of Bishop William Barlow). Daniel's first married Mary Newberry, who was the mother of all of his nine children and who died in 1688. Following her death, in 1689 he married Martha (Pitkin) Wolcott, the widow of Simon Wolcott, and became stepfather of her six children, including future Connecticut colonial governor Roger Wolcott, who served as governor from 1750-1754. Clark's great-grandson (through Roger Wolcott, who married Clark's biological granddaughter, Sarah Drake) was

Oliver Wolcott Oliver Wolcott Sr. (November 20, 1726 December 1, 1797) was an American Founding Father and politician. He was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation as a representative of Connecticut, and t ...

, a signer of the

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...

and the Articles of Confederation, and governor of Connecticut from 1796 until his death a year later. Oliver Wolcott's son, Oliver Wolcott Jr., also served as governor of Connecticut, from 1817-1827, in addition to serving as the second

Secretary of the Treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...

from 1795-1800. Several other governors of Connecticut,

Roger Griswold Roger Griswold (; May 21, 1762 – October 25, 1812) was a nineteenth-century lawyer, politician and judge from Connecticut. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court and the 22 ...

and

Clark Bissell Clark Bissell (September 7, 1782 – September 15, 1857) was the 34th governor of Connecticut. He served as an associate justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court from 1829 to 1839. He had previously served as a member of the Connecticut House of ...

, in addition to a governor of

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, Roger Wolcott, are also descended from Daniel Clark.

New England's Last Witch Trial

Clark served as the prosecuting attorney on behalf of the Crown against Winifred King Benham and her daughter Winifred of Wallingford in the last witch trial conducted in New England in 1697. They were charged with "having familiarity with Satan the Enemy of God and mankind, and by aid doing many preternatural acts". The Benham women subsequently had the charges dismissed.Entertaining the Devil in Connecticut
Retrieved December 26, 2017

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Daniel 1622 births 1710 deaths Deputies of the Connecticut General Court (1639–1662) Members of the Connecticut General Assembly Council of Assistants (1662–1818) People of colonial Massachusetts Connecticut lawyers People from Windsor, Connecticut King Philip's War English emigrants People of colonial Connecticut People from Chester Military personnel from Cheshire