A record of the descendants of John Clark, of Farmington, Conn ...

12 CLARK GENEALOGY.
John Fletcher was admitted to the church in Milford,
Nov. 14, 1641, and Mary his wife, Dec. 19, 1641. John
Fletcher died April 18, 1662. See Trumhull's Colonial Rec-
ords of Connecticut, vol. i, page 451, Milford Town and
Church Records, and Savage's Dictionary.
JOHN CLARK OF FARMINGTON.
John Clark, the ancestor of the family whose genealogy is
hereafter recorded, was an early settlei" of Farmington, liow
early does not appear.
"
He had been a resident long enough
to have acquired numerous pieces of land when the town
registrar made a formal record of them in the month of
January,
1657. The names of John Clark and his wife
were included in a list of the members of the church in
Farmington made March 1, 1679-80. When they joined is
not stated. He was made a freeman in May, 1664. (See
Colonial Records^ vol. i, pp. 412 and 427.) On the 27th of
December, 1682, he was chosen a Chimney Viewer by the
town, with the following instructioiis : "
Att the saem meeting
it was vooted and agreed y' the Chimney viewers should
atend their work of veiuing chimnyes & Ladders one in six
weeks in y*' winter and in y^ Sumer one a quarter and for
each neglect hear of they shall paye to y« touen treshucr
tenn shillings."*
On the 28th of December, 1685, and again
on the 8th of December, 1690, he was chosen a surveyor of
have held we
highways. What offices he may previously
know not, since the formal record of town meetings begins
*Thecu.sloni of paying them notliiusr for their services, but of fining
them for refusing 1o accept office and for ever}- neglect of duty, must liave
been about as satisfactory to the offloeholders of these good old times as
the decision attributed to Wouter Van Twiller, the renowned Governor
of New Amsterdam, who, after condemning the plaintiff and defendant
in a lawsuit to give each other a receipt in full, ordered the constable to
pay the costs.— Knickerbocker's Uistory of New York.