Clark

Clark explores a community with a history dating from 1864, the height of the Civil War. Accessed by Exit 135 on the Garden State Parkway, Clark was originally the Fifth Ward of Rahway until a group of disgruntled farmers, led by founding fathers Robert A. Russell, William Bloodgood, William H. Enders, Smith Woodruff, and Judge Hugh H. Bowne, declared its independence and established a self-governing township. The men named the town for a local American patriot and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Clark. The vintage photographs included here represent Clark's history from its days as a rural farm town of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to its current status as a thriving suburban community.

Clark councilman and municipal historian Brian P. Toal is a lifelong Clarkite and the author of Clark's one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary journal. He serves as curator of Clark's museum and archives and has conducted many educational programs that highlight Clark's glorious past.