John Nathaniel Clark was a farmer, teacher, florist, probate judge, naturalist and ornithologist.
He was born in Old Saybrook, CT on January 14, 1831, to Nathaniel Clark (1795-1876) and Mary Yale (1829-1876). Nathaniel descended from John Clark, one of the original settlers of Saybrook Point and Mary was a descendant of Elihu Yale, founder of Yale College.
John was in the Civil War draft in 1863 at age 32. He married Mary Werden in 1875, and they had three children.
He wrote many bird articles from 1881 to 1893 which were published in the Ornithologist and Oologist journal. John was a member of the National Ornithological Society. Besides his collection of birds and eggs, he collected insects and blocks of wood from nearly every variety of wood which grows in this country.
This is an ad in the 1894 Oologist for the Students of Birds journal. John is looking for eggs from (281) Mountain Plover and can offer (5) St. Domingo Grebe along with others as noted. The numbers refer to the A.O.U. (American Ornithologists’ Union) Nomenclature for bird eggs. These numbers were first published in 1886. The nomenclature used before that was Ridgway’s Nomenclature created by Robert Ridgway, an ornithologist in 1880. Ridgeway was a founding member of the A.O.U. in 1883 and along with other ornithologists created the A.O.U.s nomenclature checklist in 1886. This standard is currently used today.
John N. Clark died at home on January 13, 1903, at the age of 72.
Clark biography in the Oologist 1915
Sources: Biodiversitylibrary.org. Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, Findagrave.com
There are three sets of Clark’s eggs in Pember’s collection. However, all are missing. There is only one set in Williams’ collection (on display).
