CHARLES RICH CLARK

Charles Rich Clark was born April 1st, 1861, in Farmington, Davis County, Utah. He was the eighth child in a family of eleven born to Ezra Thompson Clark and Mary Stevenson. The parents were married in May 1845 at the Clark settlement in Lee County, Iowa, and moved about as the church members moved in their effort to avoid persecution by their enemies. As they moved westward, Brigham Young asked Ezra to remain and raise grain and farm produce needed for the saints coming through on their trek westward. The next year Ezra, Mary and their two sons migrated westward, arriving in the Salt Lake valley in September 1848. After spending the first months in the Bountiful area, they moved to the Farmington area, then called Cottonwood Creek. Ezra was given 35 acres of land, on which he started a successful farm and ranch operation. As his family grew, so did his land holdings and business interests.

He built a two-story adobe home at 368 West State, then called Clark lane, in 1857 before leaving for a two-year mission to England. While there he became acquainted with a Leggett family among others, who were encouraged to migrate to America. In 1861 he noted Susan Leggett's name on a ship passenger list and proposed that she became his seconds wife. Charles was the youngest of Mary's boys at the time Susan's family began. 

As each "Thousand Dollar" boy arrived, he would take his place in the family and help with the farm and ranch operations. In time there were more boys in Mary's family and ten children in Susan's family. The families lived across the street from each other, and a close and friendly relationship grew up between the mothers and the children of each family. The boys, including Charles, learned to ride well, help take care of the stock, guide the walking plow, and irrigate the crops. Most of the family members lived under a family cooperative similar to the United Order. Pooling their efforts they in time acquired 700 acres in the Farmington area, a mill and acreage in Morgan County, acreages in Franklin County, and about 1200 acres in Georgetown, Bear Lake County, Idaho. 

The Georgetown venture came as a result of a call by Brigham Young to Ezra and some 200 others to settle Bear Lake County. He and his son Joseph helped lay out and settle Georgetown. They were active there in the 1870's and 1880's. Cattle herds from Farmington trailed northward in the spring and returned in the fall. Beef and cheese were welcomed by families now living in Farmington and Morgan. The older families were assigned to various homesteads and farming areas. Charles relates that he enjoyed his first cattle drive northward when he was thirteen years old. 

Charles was a good student in school and progressed well considering the interruptions made necessary by the farming operations. His special interests seemed to be history, mathematics, religion and elocution. As he grew up he took part in church and school programs. Singing groups attracted him, and he often recited "pieces" he had memorized.

In his diary of 1887 Charles mentions, "Attended J. H. Wilcox's in Workman House. In 1879... attended school in the East Adobe."