Joseph L. Clark was born on May 6, 1832, in Naples, New York, to Lorenzo Clark and Laura Turner. His father was a farmer and Whig politician who owned $3,500 of real estate. He grew up and attended school in Naples, and he moved to Kankakee County, Illinois, around 1854. He purchased 160 acres of land, and he eventually grew the farm to more than 500 acres. According to an early biographer, he initially “rented his land, teaching school in the winter and working at his trade of carpentering in the summer season.”

 

He enlisted in the Union army on August 3, 1861, and he mustered in as a sergeant in Company D of the 42^nd Illinois Infantry. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 8 ½ inches tall, with light hair and blue eyes. The regiment took part in the siege of Corinth, the Battle of Stones River, the Battle of Chickamauga, the Battle of Missionary Ridge, and the Atlanta campaign. He described the devastation of Stones River but assured his family that “the excitement of a life in front of the enemy more than counterbalances the exposure we have. In fact want & exposure do not appear to affect us.” He was eventually reduced to the ranks “because of trouble with his captain.” He mustered out on September 16, 1864.

 

He returned to Kankakee County after the war and resumed his work as a farmer and carpenter. He married Mary Louisa Wooster on May 2, 1865, and they had at least four children: Mary, born around 1867; Mabel, born around 1872; Elwin, born around 1878; and Carrie, born around 1886. He supported the Republican Party, and he was elected county surveyor in 1884. He held the position for the next nine years. In the late 1880s, one biographer noted, he was “appointed engineer to lower the Kankakee river at Momence [Illinois].”

 

His wife died in 1895. He applied for a federal pension in 1905 and eventually received one. He died in Momence, Illinois, on November 17, 1918.

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