Clark had been phenomenal ; from a bartender to the dignity of a profession, and all in the space of four or five years ! Dr. Clark was but twenty-one when he came to Moreau. Having previously satisfied the preliminary requirements, he was advanced to the full privileges of a physician in a license granted by the judge of the court of common pleas for Washington County, in the month of June following his settlement in Saratoga County.

From his home in Moreau, Dr. Clark for thirty-four years went up and down the long stretches of his rides, ministering faithfully to the sick. The region was in a primitive condition, with poor roads, and was but thinly inhabited. Ex'hausting to body and mind, as must necessarily have been his labors, he yet had a disposition

BIRTH AT MOREAU OF THE TEMPERANCE REFORMATION. 1 23

to employ himself in the sphere of agriculture and to inform himself upon the political issues of the day. In 1820 he represented his county as Member of Assembly. Through his daily visits to the sick, Dr. Clark was afforded exceptional advantages for observing and studying the effects upon the people of the prevailing intemperance, which had taken a particularly strong grasp upon the population among which he had come to dwell. Armstrong seems to attribute the heavy drinking in Moreau to the leading industry, stating that " all the towns and counties in the vicinity of the ever-rolling Hudson were teeming with lumber," Whatever may have been the predisposing cause of the general and excessive use of intoxicants in England, it is not difficult to point out the conditions which contributed to the growth of tJhe same practice in this country. The lives of the people were laborious, monotonous, and unmitigated by those social relaxations which in modern times so greatly lighten the burdens and alleviate the sorrows of life.