Samuel
Clark was born near the Lehigh river, in Northampton county,
Pennsylvania, January 17, 1770. Seven months after his father’s death,
in the latter part of 1771, his mother returned to Wallpack, Sussex
county, New Jersey, where she had been reared. Her people were Germans,
and little Samuel first learned to speak that language. By her industry
the mother supported her family in their infancy, all through the
tedious war of the Revolution, and was often subjected to much trouble
and annoyance (the Indians being on the north and west and the British
army on the south and east) and more than once she was forced to seek
safety in the fort. At the age of fourteen Samuel was bound out to John
Dimon, a carpenter and wagonmaker, and served through seven years of
drudgery. On April 18, 1792, he married Mary Custer, by whom he had ten
children, as follows: William, born June 8, 1794, in Sussex county, New
Jersey; Samuel, born in New Jersey, August 13, 1796, died near
Sharon; Catherine, born in Jefferson county, Ohio, April 12,
1798, married James Simonton; Abraham, born in Jefferson county, Ohio,
May 21, 1800, died in Clarksville in October, 1888; Mary, born in
Jefferson county, Ohio, March 10, 1802, married John Conley; Sarah,
born in Jefferson county, Ohio, April 11, 1804, married John Gillespie;
Susannah, deceased, born in Pymatuning township, Mercer county,
Pennsylvania, July 15, 1806, married John Fruit; Jane, born in Mercer
county, January 8, 1811; Nancy, born in Mercer county, September 6,
1813, and died April 17, 1890, the wife of Joseph McClure, of
Clarksville; and Jacob. Samuel Clark, Sr., the father, died October 29,
1860, aged ninety years. nine months and twelve days, and his widow,
Mary (Custer) Clark, died October 7, 1863. aged ninety-one years,
eleven months and twenty-three days. Her family gave to the world the
brave General Custer, who was killed by the Sioux Indians in June,
1876.
Source: (Twentieth Century History of Mercer County, 1909, pages 364 - 367)
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