John Clark, president of the National Bank of Franklin, Ind., was born in Saybrook, Conn., in 1818. His parents were Benjamin W. and Polly (De Wolf) Clark, both natives of Connecticut, who came to Indiana in 1819, and located on the extreme Indiana boundary line, in what is now Jennings County, Ind., where the mother died seven years later, leaving a family consisting of five children. Benjamin W. removed to Madison, Ind., and died a year later, his death, however, occurring in Jennings County, while on a visit there. After death of parents, the children were cared for by friends, the father, however, having left an estate of some pretensions. In March, 1829, the children, of whom our subject was the eldest, returned to Jennings County, to make that their home, and it was there our subject was reared and educated in the log schoolhouse. In 1836, being then seventeen years of age, he sold his time for one year for forty dollars, to Levi Todd, a merchant of Vernon, Ind., and at expiration of the year engaged with E. Baldwin in the same place for six years, one year of which time he had an interest in the business. In 1845, he removed to Edinburg, Johnson County, and engaged in merchandising, from 1845 to 1856; then located in Franklin in 1861, and engaged in milling, in the now Union Mill. Ten years later he retired from the mill business. During his connection with the mill he engaged in banking, and served as president of the Second National Bank for about eleven years. In 1882 he was instrumental in organizing the national Bank of Franklin, of which he was elected president, and upon the consolidation of the two banks, Franklin and National, he was retained as president of the same. With the exception of school trustee in Jennings County, to which he was elected while a boy, Mr. Clark has never held public office nor sought any. He has been a member of the Presbyterian Church since 1850. Mr. Clark was married in 1850, to Jane P. Fink, who was a native of Pittsburg, Pa., and died in 1876. He was married in 1878 to Mrs. M. P. Charlton, of Vernon, Ind. To the first marriage six children were born, one of whom, a daughter, survives. Mr. Clark is a republican in politics.