William Andrews CLARK, Congress, MT (1839-1925)

CLARK, William Andrews, a Senator from Montana; born near Connellsville, Fayette County, Pa., January 8, 1839; attended the common schools and the Laurel Hill Academy; in 1856 moved with his parents to Iowa, where he taught school; while teaching, studied law at the Iowa Wesleyan University at Mount Pleasant; worked in the quartz mines near Central City, Gilpin County, Colo., in 1862; went to Montana in 1863 and settled in Bannack, Beaverhead County, and engaged in placer mining for two years; engaged in various mercantile pursuits in Blackfoot and Helena and in banking at Deer Lodge; major of a battalion that pursued Chief Joseph and his band of Nez Perce to the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana in 1877; president of the State constitutional convention in 1884 and of the second constitutional convention in 1889; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate for the term commencing March 4, 1899; took his seat December 4, 1899, and vacated his seat on May 15, 1900, before a resolution declaring his election void because of election fraud could be adopted; appointed to fill the vacancy caused by his own resignation, but did not qualify; again elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1901, and served from March 4, 1901, to March 3, 1907; was not a candidate for reelection; resumed his copper mining, banking, and railroad interests; resident of New York City until his death there on March 2, 1925; interment in Woodlawn Cemetery.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Foot, Forrest L. ‘The Senatorial Aspirations of William A. Clark, 1898-1901: A Study In Montana Politics.’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, 1941; Mangam, William. The Clarks, An American Phenomenon. New York: Silver Bow Press, 1941.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present