Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/117

 papers on the slavery issue, being a “free-soiler” in politics. He attended the Pittsburg National Convention which took the preliminary steps toward the organization of the Republican party in 1856, acting as one of the secretaries. At the National Republican Convention in 1860, Mr. Clarke was one of the delegates from Iowa and was chosen chairman of the delegation. He soon after purchased the State Press at Iowa City and took an active part in the antislavery contest leading to the Kansas war. As a member of the National Kansas Committee he sent a company of men to aid the citizens of that Territory in expelling the “Border Ruffian” invaders. He was for many years the keeper of a station on the “underground railroad” and was fearless in aiding fugitive slaves to freedom, cooperating with John Brown during his operations in Iowa. Mr. Clarke prepared the original ordinances for the government of Iowa City. He was reporter of the decisions of the Iowa Supreme Court for five years. As an influential member of the Constitutional Convention of 1857 he acted as chairman of the committee on judiciary. Early in the Civil War Mr. Clarke was appointed paymaster in the army, serving until 1866. He was then chosen chief clerk in the Interior Department at Washington, resigning when Andrew Johnson began his war on the Republican party, and returning to the practice of law in Washington, he died February 7, 1903.  COKER F. CLARKSON was a native of the State of Maine where he was born in the year 1810. His father removed with his family to Indiana in 1820 going by wagon. After assisting his father on the new farm until about seventeen, Coker learned the printing business. He secured a position in the office of the Lawrenceburg Statesman and after three years was placed in charge of the paper. In the course of four years he was able to buy the establishment and published the Brookville American until 1854 when he disposed of the property and, in 1855, located in Grundy County, Iowa. Here he lived until 1878. He was a close observer, an excellent writer and was one of the pioneers in agricultural writing in Iowa. In 1863 he was elected to the State Senate from the district consisting of the counties of Hardin, Grundy, Black Hawk and Franklin. He was appointed chairman of the committee on agriculture and helped to devise the system of disposing of the Agricultural College land grant by which a large revenue was derived from it while the government lands were obtainable for free homesteads. He served four years in the Senate and in 1868 was a prominent candidate for Congress in the old Sixth District which embraced more than a third of the counties of the entire State. In December, 1870 he, with his two sons, Richard P. and James S., purchased the Iowa State Register, of which he became agricultural editor. In the contest between the farmers and the Washburn Barb Wire Trust he gave the Farmers' Association continued and valuable aid, helping to 