The Biography of John Adams Clark

John Adams, like his father, was a mining prospector, and one of some renown at that time in Northern California. Among his discoveries was the Clark Placer and the Surcease Mine at Big Bend, California.

When John died, the local newspaper had this to say about his mining career:

John Clark is a matter of legend in Butte County, as it goes. They say there isn't a quartz ledge or placer mining prospect in the County that he hasn't prospected at one time. He was 79 years old at his last birthday, but just a year ago he filed a quartz claim in Shasta County. He found gold, he said, and several other minerals, too. It wasn't anything new. he'd been doing it, or so it is officially recorded, since 1893. Some even say he was born in a quartz vein.

He served in the Spanish American War as a Private in Co. G of the 8th California Infantry. He was also a member of I Company when that unit was called for Mexican Border Patrol duty in 1916.

He married Arilee May Rashe Petteys, a widow, on 20 January 1901 at Oroville, California. Arilee, a daughter of Joseph Hawk and Catherine (Niderer) Rashe, was born on 10 October 1863 in Lancaster, San Gamon County, in Illinois.

They both lived to a good old age, Arilee passing away first on 26 September 1946, aged 82, in Redding, California, followed by John 5 months later, on 10 March 1947, aged 79 in Oroville.

John and Arilee lived mainly in Yankee Hill and Oroville, and had two children there, a boy named Canby Adams (1901) and a girl, Hatetna Romanza (1903).

Canby married Mae Irene Whitney in 1921. They had one child, a son, named Donald Lee Clark. Canby passed away in 1942, aged 40 and she died in 1978, aged 74. Hatetna, nicknamed "Tena", married Alfred Henry Leslie in 1923. They had no children. He passed away in 1986 in Shasta, California; she died in 1994 in Redding, California.

---Michael L. Clark