Samuel Porter Clark was born September 12, 1869, in Fayetteville, Lincoln County, Tennessee. He grew up on the family farm of his parents, James Harvey Clark (born 1842) and Sarah Elizabeth "Bettie" Murdock Clark (1841–1923). Upon attaining maturity, Sam headed south to Texas. He married Emma Lou Hawkins (1869–1937) in Greenville, Hunt County, in 1894.

Within two years, the young couple had located in Denison, Grayson County, Texas. The 1896 Denison City Directory listed Sam, age 27, as a salesman at William H. Brown's Cash Dry Goods Store at 319 West Main Street. The store sold clothing and shoes for men and women. Sam lived at 824 West Main.

In downtown Denison, merchants tended to shift locations and partners often. The 1901 City Directory listed Sam P. Clark and Alex L. Douglass ("merchant tailors, men's furnishers, hats") at 229 West Main Street. A "merchant tailor" was "a tailor who keeps and sells materials for the garments which he makes." Sam was living at 729 West Chestnut Street.

"Clark & Douglass, Tailors and Furnishers."
Robinson, Frank M., comp. Industrial Denison. [N.p.]: Means-Moore Co., [ca. 1909]. Page 96a.

In 1905, the City Directory listed two merchant tailor firms at 221 West Main:
A. L. Douglass and Clark & Loving. Sam P. Clark was a partner in the latter firm. However, that year, no Loving was listed in the City Directory.

By 1907, Sam had left Denison. 1908 found him in the Dallas City Directory. He was vice president of the Mystic Fraternity of the World, Inc. With him were William A. Bomar, president; John W. Hearon, secretary; A. C. Wilson, treasurer; and H. L. McLaurin, medical directory. Offices were at 427 Wilson Building. Sam roomed at 200 McKinney Avenue. The Mystic Fraternity sounds like a start-up fraternal organization, but it does not appear in lists of such groups. These can be providers of insurance coverage; however, the Mystic is not in the directory's professional listing of insurance agents.

By 1910, Sam was a traveling salesman for Ras Hackett, a merchandise broker at 806 Wilson Building. Five years later, he was working for Southland Trading Company and rooming on Pearl Street. He listed himself in the 1920 Census as a clothing merchant. In 1930, he was a catalog agent for Pool Manufacturing Company.

Sam's wife Emma passed away in Dallas on 26 May 1937. She was buried in East Mount Cemetery at Greenville with her parents. Sam joined her there after he died in a home for the aged in Arlington, Texas, on September 8, 1962, at age 92. The couple appear not to have had children.

 

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