Chapter VII: Nathaniel Clark Ownership

The next in the succession of owners was Nathaniel Clark. On April 3, 1783, Henry Richmond sold his homestead and lands to Clark, after ownership for fifteen years and the building of the house and buildings. The deed is recorded in Book 62, Page 24. The price paid was 60 pounds.

Paying 20 pounds originally and receiving 13 pounds from his son Eliab for 30 acres, he had a net gain of 53 pounds on his undertaking, assuming a constant value in the currency of the period, which is unlikely. About a year later, April 29, 1784, as found in Book 63, Page 69, Eliab and Hannah Richmond sold also to Nathaniel Clark their thirty acres, having been held for eleven years. The price was 11 pounds and 8 shillings, so he had a loss of a little more than a pound from what he had paid his father.

Records indicate there was a Nathaniel Clark, born 1747, the son of the fourth William Clark. In 1796 he married Lydia Sampson. There were Sampsons resident in the area. He would be a bachelor aged 37 when he bought the homestead, 1783-1784, and did not become married until eight years after he had sold the homestead in 1788.

On April 24, 1789, a Nathaniel Clark of Rochester, Mass., granted to Johnathan Bates and John Burgess of Rochester, probably the John Burgess later to buy the Pond homestead, a piece of land in Rochester,