Star – Clipper Supplement
Traer, Iowa, ?, 1887
History of North Tama
By Daniel Connell

Chapter XX
Leander Clark

Leander Clark was born in Wakeman, Huron county, Ohio, July 17, 1823. At the age of twenty-three years he went to Wisconsin and was engaged in surveying, clerking in a drug store and in the official capacity of deputy sheriff. In 1849 he went to California by the overland route and means – oxen and horses. While there he engaged in mining and trading. By 1852 he had secured a reasonable sum and concluded to return to the States. Traveling about in search of a location to permanently settle, on the third day of May, 1854,he arrived in Buckingham township. During that year and the early part of the following he entered land in that town and in Geneseo, they being on the town line or near it. In 1856, with his brother Theodore, erected a saw mill which manufactured a large quantity of lumber, supplying in part the necessities of the growing settlement. Mr. Clark was elected justice in 1855, and re-elected in 1857. The preliminary examination of Oleslager and Butler for the killing of a boy who was in their keeping during the winter of 1856-7 was before Justice Clark, occupying nearly a week. It was said the prosecutor sued the defendant for the killing of the boy. In 1857 he was also elected county judge, and re-elected in 1859. His friends still pushing, in 1861 he was elevated representative. When the call came for “three hundred thousand more” Mr. Clark said that meant him, and it did. In the month of August, 1862, one morning early, he stopped at the house of the writer to inform us of his intention. The matter was discussed and plans made. He remounted and went to Toledo and at once commenced to raise a company. He was successful. It was E, 24th regiment, know as the temperance regiment. He was elected captain and was mustered in by Capt. H. B. Hendershott at Muscatine, Sept. 18, 1862.

July 18, 1864, he was commissioned major, and lieutenant-colonel in July, 1865, to date from January 1, 1865.

The 24th was mustered out at Savannah, Georgia, July 17, 1865, paid off and disbanded at Davenport Aug. 1-2, 1865. The brigade of which the 24th was a part contained also the 28th, and a regiment from Illinois and one from Indiana. It was commanded by General Hovey and did good service. Major Clark was slightly wounded at Champion Hills and Winchester.

Soon after his return from the war in 1865, he was again elected representative, and in 1866 was appointed Indian agent of the Sac and Fox Indians, serving three years. Having won his spurs, accumulated honors and wealth he married in 1867 and settled for life. At the expiration of his last duties as representative he settled in Toledo, still retaining his landed interests in the settlement.

Concerning his legislative career, the measures of general importance proposed and acted on, the part he took in their discussion, but little can be learned. The regular and extra sessions, particularly the extra session, was devoted to raising and equipping troops.

The most important act in a historical point of view, passed by the Eleventh General Assembly, was the ratification of the amendment of the constitution of the United States abolishing slavery, which was approved March 31, 1866. This action was printed on parchment and contains every member of both houses, all of whom voted yea.

On the parchment are the names of Leander Clark and Wm. B. King, of Tama county, - a memento that will be prized by their heirs for generations to come. A law to tax dogs two dollars each and providing that they should wear a collar was enacted by the Ninth General Assembly at the regular session in the interest of sheep raising. So great was the clamor against this that it was repealed at the extra session.