Bascom B. Clarke, son of James F. Clarke and Lucy F. Boyd

Bascom B. Clarke, son of James F. Clarke and Lucy F. Boyd

Dane County, Wisconsin

Bascom B. Clarke, prominent among the representative business men of Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin, the well known general agent for Wisconsin of the C. Aultman & Company, manufacturers of threshers and engines, of Canton, Ohio, was born near the Natural Bridge in Rockbridge County, Virginia, 24 Jun 1851, and is descended from an old Virginia family. The first of the Clarke name in America were two brothers who came in the "Mayflower" and subsequently settled in Virginia, in the neighborhood of Harper's Ferry.

The grandfather of our subject was Woodson P. Clarke, who was a soldier in the War of 1812. His son, James F. Clarke, father of our subject, was born in Virginia, and was a man of prominence in Rockbridge County, Virginia. He was a colonel of militia, and superintendent of the Buffalo Forge, one of the largest iron concerns in the locality. James F. Clarke married Lucy F. Boyd, of Boyd's Tavern, in Albemarle County, Virginia. In Sep 1858 he started with his family for Texas, where he expected to make his future home, but while en route changed his mind and located in Arkansas County, Arkansas, where he became bookkeeper for a large supply house. When the late war began he enlisted in the Confederate army and became Colonel of an Arkansas regiment, in which one of his sons was a Lieutenant. His death occurred in 1863, and the following year his wife, Lucy F.(Boyd) Clarke, died, thus leaving our subject an orphan at a tender age, and in the most uncertain and troublesome of times. He was left without means of support, and made his home practically among strangers, so far as blood ties go.

The same year of his mother's death, Bascom B. Clarke joined several families who were refugees to the North, and with them was carried inside the Union lines by an Indiana battery. Subsequently he made his way into Indiana and found employment on a farm, where he remained until he reached his 20th year, working morning and evening during the winter for his board and attending school during the day for three terms. Leaving the farm in 1870, he went to Colfax, Clinton County, Indiana, where he secured a place in a drug store. He continued in the drug store for about three years, raising himself from the lowest to the highest position in the establishment during that period. In 1874 he was appointed, under General Grant's administration, Postmaster at Colfax, Indiana, a position he filled until 1883. When he took charge of the post office it paid a salary of $12.50 per month; when he left it the salary was $100 per month. In 1877 he entered the newspaper business by purchasing the Colfax Chronicle which he published until 1882, and then sold the plant, and in Oct 1882 took the road for Robinson & Company, of Richmond, Indiana, manufacturers of threshers and engines.

Bascom B. Clarke remained with this firm, traveling over five states until 1885, and then took a position with the William Deering Company, in the binder line. In 1888 he left the Deering people and went with the Birdsall Company, of Auburn, New York, with which house he was in 1889, when he fell ill with an attack of typhoid fever. During this time his residence was in Indiana, but upon recovering from his protracted illness he found it necessary to leave the State in order to find a more congenial climate. His reputation at this time, as a machine man, was established and well known among all manufacturers, and no sooner was it known that he would make a change of location than he was offered, and accepted, the general agency of the State of Wisconsin by the C. Aultman & Company. On 01 May 1890, Bascom B. Clarke came to Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin, a total stranger, being in fact, without an acquaintance in the entire State. At that time the business of his company in WI was in a bad and mixed condition, in fact was no business at all.

Mr. Clarke opened headquarters, to use his own expression, in a grip sack in the Hotel Ogden. As the business grew apace he removed to an adjoining wareroom in the hotel building, then into an alley in H. G. Dodge's coal yard. In a brief time, however, owing to his ability as a hustler, the business in the state had increased to such an extent that large and fitting quarters were necessary, and the company leased ground on the corner of East Washington Avenue and Blount Street, and the present large and commodious headquarters were established. In two years time, Bascom B. Clarke had built up the trade of his company from practically nothing to the largest, by far, of any other company doing business in the same line in the State. He employs nine traveling salesmen, and the business now aggregates over $100,000 annually. Credit for all this is due entirely to Bascom B. Clarke, whose ability, as a manager and salesman, is recognized by his company and competitors as second to none in the Northwest. In Jan 1892, Bascom B. Clarke organized the Union Transfer and Storage Company of Madison, Wisconsin, which company was incorporated with a paid up capital of $10,000 on 27 Jan 1892, with himself as president, a position he holds at the present.

Mr. Clarke is a member of all the Masonic lodges of Madison, from the Blue Lodge up to and including the Knights Templar, and is also a member of the Indiana Traveling Men's Association. Mr. Clarke is a self-make man in all that the term implies. Left without parents at a time in life when they were most needed, and at a time when his surroundings were calculated to stunt his growth morally, rather than stimulate and spur him on to a useful life, he passed through trials and hardships seldom experienced by the average man and worked his way unaided to a most useful and responsible position in life, and the present finds him an honored citizen of one of the leading cities of the Northwest, with a still more promising career opening up for him. Personally Mr. Clarke is one of the most genial and sociable of men. Possessed of fine conversational powers, of keen wit and ready humor, he is a most pleasant and agreeable companion, as well as a worthy and substantial member of society.

Bascom B. Clarke was married on 09 Oct 1873 to Miss Mahettie B. Watkins, of Colfax, Clinton County, Indiana, and to the companion of his joys and sorrows he gives all the credit of his success. Mrs. Clarke has been all that the name implies, a devoted wife, and model mother. Bascom B. and Mahettie B. (Watkins) Clarke have three children, all boys, and in sickness and health, in prosperity and adversity, Mr. Clarke has always been sustained by the devotion of this faithful companion.

Source: Biographical review of Dane County, Wisconsin : containing biographical sketches of pioneers and leading citizens; Microfilm of original published: Chicago: Biographical Review Pub., 1893. - FHL Film 1000810