Thomas Clarke
Thomas Clarke was born in England in 1599. He first appears in July 1623, when he arrived at Plymouth on the Anne. She was a ship of 140 tons, William Peirce master, carrying forty-two adult passengers and their children. He brought considerable property with him, especially cattle. He was given land near Eel River, now Chiltonville, and lived there for a time.
In 1627 he was the only man of his name in Plymouth Colony. In the colony tax list of 1632 he was assessed at one pound four shillings. Only twelve of the ninety men taxed paid more. He took the freeman's oath in 1633. In 1640 he was counted among the fifty-eight "purchasers or old comers" of Plymouth.
Documents of the time call him carpenter, yeoman, merchant or gentleman. He was hired once to audit the accounts of Plymouth Colony. He served as constable and surveyor of highways from 1641 to 1647, sat on the Committee of Plymouth Colony in 1650, and was Representative to the General Court in 1651 and 1655. He was a deacon of the Plymouth church from 1654 until he died.
By the summer of 1631 he had married Susan Ring, daughter of the widow Mary Ring, whose will that year named her "my daughter Susan Clarke." His children were probably all hers: Andrew, James, William, Susanna, Nathaniel and John. Between 1655 and 1660 he moved to Boston. He lived near Scottow's Lane and traded as a merchant. On 6 October 1668 "Thomas Clarke, sometime of New Plymouth, merchant" paid 140 pounds for ground near the lesser drawbridge, with a wharf and warehouse. In 1664 he married again, in Boston, to Alice Nichols, a widow and daughter of Richard Hallett.
He and his son Andrew were among the original proprietors of Harwich, on Cape Cod, and he followed Andrew there. In his last years he stayed often with his daughter Susanna Lothrop at Barnstable. On 6 June 1693 he gave land to his five sons and three of his grandsons, with the larger shares to Andrew and to Andrew's eldest son. He told them to keep the land in the family.
Thomas Clarke died at Plymouth on 24 March 1697, aged ninety-eight. He was buried on the summit of Burial Hill, above the harbor. His slate stone is carved with a winged face and still stands. It reads: "Here lyes ye body of Mr Thomas Clark aged 98 years departed this life March ye 24 1697." In 1891 his descendants set a bronze tablet on a boulder beside it. A china mug and a leather wallet bearing his name were kept among the relics at Forefathers' Hall in Plymouth.
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Cite: Heirology, "Thomas Clarke (1599-1697)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/thomas-clarke-1599-1697-04ed49.