Laban Clark papers

Laban Clark, D.D., father of Wesleyan University and first president of Wesleyan's Board of Trustees, was born in Haverhill, New Hampshire in 1778. He was twice married, first to Harriet Fairchild, daughter of Anson Fairchild and Orpha Spelman. Harriet died in 1836,leaving three children: Joseph, William P. and Marianne Clark (Howland). Clark remarried in April 1837 to Sarah Dorchester Hanks. She lived until 1866, two years before her husband. Laban Clark and his wives are buried in the Wesleyan cemetery on Foss Hill.

From 1801 to 1851, Laban Clark was engaged in the work of the ministry, New York and New York East Conferences, Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1803 he served as a missionary in Lower Canada. Laban Clark introduced the resolution to organize the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City in 1819. Clark took an active part in advocating Willbur Fisk's educational report in the General Conference in 1828. Both were in sympathy with the movement to establish a Methodist college.

It was while Clark was presiding elder of the New Haven District in 1829 that he became interested in acquiring the buildings and grounds of the American Literary, Military and Science Academy in Middletown, Connecticut. At the Troy Conference in May 1829 Clark made the proposal to buy the ALS&M Academy property. After other locations were studied as well, and the endowment funds raised, the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut granted a charter to the Wesleyan University on May 21, 1831. Laban Clark served as the president of the Board of Trustees from 1831 to 1868. In 1852, Clark was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Divinity degree from the University.

He died on November 28, 1868, in Middletown Connecticut.