Ithamar Clark, when his little son Billy was about six years old, left Northampton and took up his residence in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where also was the home of Mrs. Clark's father. For a period of four years the boy attended the school which afterwards developed into Williams College, at the end of which time the family changed its home to Pownal, Vermont. Of the details of the domestic life of the Clarks, we have no record. Nothing is known of the wife of Ithamar Clark, except that her maiden name was Sarah Simonds, and that she was a daughter of Benjamin Simonds, who had been a colonel in the Continental army, serving in the campaign against Burgoyne. It is probable that the moral and religious leanings of Dr. Clark were inherited from or instilled by his mother. His father seems not to have been much interested in the ideas that his son did so much to advance. Previous to his settling at Pownal, he had followed agriculture and shoe-making, but now, in the capacity of tavern-keeper, he began selling liquor.
In Dr. Holden's article it is stated that the tavern was located upon a farm that Mr. Clark had purchased, one and a half miles from Pownal on the Bennington road.
Young Billy Clark, standing behind his father's bar and dealing out intoxicating drinks, was in a position to observe thoroughly the pernicious effects of dallying with alcohol. His daily occupation was an open book, as thrilling as lurid chapters of fiction, and the letters of it remained upon his soul in characters of unquenchable fire. Abraham Lincoln, when a young man, having gone down the Mississippi as a flat-boatman, visited the slave market of New Orleans. He was deeply affected by the harrowing scenes he there beheld, and he registered a vow that should ever the opportunity present itself, he would strike with all his power the institution that encouraged such iniquities. Thus was planted the germ that budded, blossomed and bore fruit in the Proclamation of Emancipation. No doubt it was the memory of his father's bar-room, with the evils radiating from it, that urged forward Dr. Clark to the culmination of his great destiny.
Some writers give the name of Dr. Clark as William J. or W. J. Clark, but he himself signed it, B. J. Clark, while the best authorities refer to him as Dr. Billy J. Clark. It is probable that Dr. Clark, becoming widely known by the more familiar title, found it convenient to substitute the same for William.
When about fifteen years of age, his father having died, young Clark returned to Northampton to attend school there for a term of one year. This experience was probably of great benefit to the youth, not only in improving his education, but by introducing him to one of the most refined and intelligent communities in New England. The inspiration of the life of Edwards was dominant in the society of the old town, and his books were still treasured and read. It is interesting to reflect that the living spirit of the great divine may have been a quickening influence in the heart of this thoughtful youth; that the story of the heroic life of Brainerd may have appealed to his religious and enterprising nature; that the memory of one or both of these devoted men may have contributed to the molding of his mind into the worthy fashion in which it subsequently displayed itself to the world. Be this as it may, not long after his return to the farm, he abandoned the bar and began the study of medicine under Dr. Caleb Gibbs, of Pownal. Still making his home at the farm, he pursued his studies for the space of two years, remunerating his preceptor by assuming the care of his horses. We find him at the end of that period, in 1797, entering as a student the office of Dr. Lemuel Wicker, of Easton, Washington County, N. Y., with whom he remained until March 21, 1799, when he began the practice of medicine in the town of Moreau. He opened his office not far from what afterwards became known as Clark's Corners. This historic neighborhood is situated about three miles in a westerly direction from Fort Edward, and five miles south of Glens Falls. Here, having married Joanna Payn, of Fort Miller, and purchased a farm, he made his permanent residence. The rise of Dr. Clark had been phenomenal; from a bartender to the dignity of a profession, and all in the space of four or five years! Dr. Clark was but twenty-one when he came to Moreau. Having previously satisfied the preliminary requirements, he was advanced to the full privileges of a physician in a license granted by the judge of the court of common pleas for Washington County, in the month of June following his settlement in Saratoga County.
From his home in Moreau, Dr. Clark for thirty-four years went up and down the long stretches of his rides, ministering faithfully to the sick. The region was in a primitive condition, with poor roads, and was but thinly inhabited. Exhausting to body and mind, as must necessarily have been his labors, he yet had a disposition to employ himself in the sphere of agriculture and to inform himself upon the political issues of the day. In 1820 he represented his county as Member of Assembly. Through his daily visits to the sick, Dr. Clark was afforded exceptional advantages for observing and studying the effects upon the people of the prevailing intemperance, which had taken a particularly strong grasp upon the population among which he had come to dwell.
Armstrong seems to attribute the heavy drinking in Moreau to the leading industry, stating that "all the towns and counties in the vicinity of the ever-rolling Hudson were teeming with lumber."
Whatever may have been the predisposing cause of the general and excessive use of intoxicants in England, it is not difficult to point out the conditions which contributed to the growth of the same practice in this country. The lives of the people were laborious, monotonous, and unmitigated by those social relaxations which in modern times so greatly lighten the burdens and alleviate the sorrows of life. Books and periodicals were not plentiful, and the character of the prevailing literature was not such as to invite the attention of the average reader. Transportation being by horsepower along the country roads, public houses, each with its bar, were encountered at every turn, while the little stores to be found at the cross-roads, also dispensed liquor to all comers. Add to this the fact that the materials from which intoxicating beverages are manufactured were abundantly grown within our borders, and near to our shores, and it will be appreciated how naturally the people fell into intemperate habits.
For a period of nine years, while Dr. Clark, in all extremities of weather, rode on horseback to the bedsides of his widely separated patients, the burden of the drink-evil weighed heavily upon his mind. He was a man of energy; one who was not easily thwarted in the carrying out of his plans. But here was a task that seemed too hard for him. What could one man accomplish in the presence of such indifference and overwhelming opposition?
The mode of action that Dr. Clark finally adopted was that of organization—a working together of the friends of temperance for a common purpose. This now seems like a very natural solution of the problem of finding his best means of procedure; but Dr. Clark was the first man to announce and to give the idea practical demonstration, though it is not probable that he possessed any clearly defined conception of the lines along which it was to operate, nor of the vast proportions which the movement was destined to attain. Like a prophet under the guiding influence of inspiration, scarcely knowing what he did, he was yet availing himself of a fundamental principle of all nature. For, investigate wherever one may, from the vilest atom of earth to the court of high heaven, organization is the law of every upward step. The ancients, dimly apprehending this sublime truth, conceived of the universe as a gigantic animal, a cosmic leviathan, whole, complete and harmonious in all its parts, while philosophy has ever striven, though in vain, to demonstrate by processes of reason what the higher authority of intuition has proclaimed in all generations.