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

60 CLABK GENEALOGY.
lege, and in order to give his younger children better oppor-
tunities for education. While residing here he learned that
a few families were about to unite for removal to the far
west (Illinois), and decided to join the party and seek a new
home. In this plan of removal, Dr. Leonard Bacon, with
whose church he was connected, manifested great interest,
and when the families, five in number, comprising twenty-
three persons, gathered at the house of Mr. Clark one day in
the fall of 1831, Dr. Bacon came to bid them good bye.
When the company were all ready to start, he proposed prayer,
and standing on the door steps surrounded by the several
families, and their friends assembled to take leave of them,
he offered prayer, committing them to the care of an ever-
present God, and with God's blessing, sent them on their way.
" The other families with whom Mr. Clark journeyed were
those of Deacon Chittenden, Mr. Bradley, Mrs. Wilson and
two sons, and a young couple named Plant. The party
reached Pittsburg on a dark and rainy evening after several
weeks of toilsome journeying over the AUeghanies. Here
the families having carriages took passage on board a steamer
bound down the Ohio and up the Mississippi rivers, while
Deacon Chittenden, with a farm wagon, took the horses, and,
with his eldest son and Mr. Plant, started to make their way
across the new States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to Alton,
the place of destination. In the spring the families aban-
doned their plan of settling near each other, Mr. Plant
and wife returning to the East, and Mr. Clark removing to
Jacksonville, where he assisted in organizing the first Con-
gregational church, his name standing third on the roll. He
performed a similar service in two other places where he
afterward lived. Buying a farm at Diamond Grove, near
Jacksonville, he commenced farming with all the enthusiasm