John Clarke
John Clarke the elder was a merchant of Colyton, a market town in east Devon about twenty-two miles from Exeter. His parents and birth are not known. He had a grown son by the 1540s, so he was probably born about 1510.
The manor of Colyton had belonged to Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter. He was beheaded in 1538 and his lands went to the Crown. A group of Colyton's townsmen, about eighty of them, then bought part of the manor from King Henry VIII, about 1546. The king enfeoffed them, that is, granted them the land to hold together, and gave them the running of the town's fairs and markets. John Clarke's name stands first on the king's patent. It appears again on the second patent of enfeoffment, granted by Queen Mary. The group became the Colyton feoffees.
Nearly forty years later the parish clerk still remembered what he had done. His burial entry reads: "1585: John Clarke thelder of Colyton Marchant was buried the ixth daye of Aprill who in his Lyfe tyme was the cheffest traveler of the purchas of the mannor of Colyton & the marketts with other Lybertyes pertaynyng to the same as Apeirethe by the pattant he dessessed the vi daye of Apryll." He died on 6 April 1585.
His will, as "John Clearcke thelder of Colyton, Marchaunt," was dated 22 January 1584, which by the modern calendar is 1585. It was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in London on 1 May 1585. It names six children: John, the eldest son, already dead, whose children shared in the estate; Francis; Roger; Edward; Agnes, the wife of Richard Conant, with her three children; and Marrian, the executrix. It mentions no wife. The probate was handled by a London proctor named Francis Clarke.
His daughter Agnes was baptized at Colyton on 16 May 1548 and married Richard Conant of East Budleigh there in 1578. Her youngest son, Roger Conant, went to New England in the 1620s and founded Salem.
His wife is not known. A Colyton entry of 1544 records the marriage of "John Clerke of Colyforde" to Annes Macye, daughter of William Macye of Colyton. The Conant genealogy of 1887 took this to be Agnes's mother. Several men named John Clarke lived in the parish, and this one is described as of Colyford, a hamlet a mile away. The merchant already had a grown son in 1546. The 1544 bride may have married a different John Clarke.
Children
Sources
If John Clarke is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "John Clarke (1510-1585)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-clarke-1510-1585-3785d3.