J. Martin Clark

As printed in 1905

J. MARTIN CLARK. M. D.

Successfully established in the practice of his profession in the city of Hamilton, Dr. Clark is one of the representative physicians and surgeons of this section and is also a schon of honored pioneer families of Butler county. The Doctor was born in the village of Seven Mile, St. Clair township. on the 2d of November, 1869, being a son of Wilson S. and Hannah (Pottinger) Clark, both of whom were likewise natives of Butler county and both of whom are now deceased, the father having been a merchant, broker and commercial traveler at different periods. He died in 1895, as the result of an accident, being in his fifty-fifth year at the time. The mother of Dr. Clark passed away when he was an infant, and his father later consummated a second marriage, of which two children were born. One is living. Bert, who is an expert bond man, located in Chicago, Illinois, as the western representative of the National City Bank of New York. He was educated in Chicago and his initial business experience was in connection with insurance lines, in which he was very successful.

When Dr. Clark was a lad his parents removed to the West. In the year 1890 he began the study of medicine and later was matriculated in Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago, where he was graduated as a member of the class of 1894. Thereafter he served for a time as house physician and surgeon in the Hahnemann Hospital, with which the college is connected, and he continued to be a member of the hospital staff until 1899, when he came to Hamilton and established himself in the active practice of his profession, while he has gained precedence and success in his chosen work and is recognized as one of the able and discriminating practitioners of the county. The Doctor defrayed the expenses of his collegiate education through his own efforts. He taught school in the west for a number of years before taking up the study of medicine. He is held in high regard in professional, business and social circles and is still a bachelor.

Reverting to the genealogy of the subject, we may say that the Clark family has been identified with the annals of American history from the colonial epoch, and the paternal grandparents of the Doctor came to Ohio and settled in Wayne township, this county, in the early part of the last century, being numbered among the sterling pioneers of this section, which was then practically a forest wild. Representatives of the family were participants in the war of the Revolution, and the grandfather of our subject took part in the war of 1812. The maternal grandparents came to this county from Kentucky, about the same time as did the Clarks. Samuel Pottinger, great-grandfather of the Doctor, died here in 1820, at the patriarchal age of one hundred and two years. Both families were numbered among the first settlers in the county and their descendants are numerous in southern Ohio, while many members of later generations have been identified with various professions. The Pottinger family traces its lineage back to stanch English origin, and the first representatives in America settled in Maryland, probably at the time when Lord Baltimore was at the head of its government.

As printed in Centennial History of Butler County, Ohio (1905). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.