Clark, Mary

Clark, Mary, an English minister of the Society of Friends, the wife of John Clark, a tradesman in London, very soon after the rise of he Quakers in that city united with that sect. She was recognised as a minister about 1655, and travelled in Worcestershire "to expostulate with the local magistracy respecting their cruel treatment of Friends." One of her experiences, while thus occupied, was her being placed tin the stocks at Evesham for three hours on the market-day, and exposure to other sufferings. In 1657 she went to America, arriving in Boston the latter part of June. Immediately on landing a warrant for her arrest as a "pestilent heretic" was issued, and before being committed to prison she was whipped, twenty strokes with a heavy, three-corded whip, "laid on with fury, being inflicted upon her. After being kept a prisoner three months, she was banished and went to Rhode Island, the asylum of the oppressed for conscience sake. She was occupied in religious service in New England until the early part of 1668, when, with two of her companions, she was shipwrecked and drowned. See Bowden, Hist. of the Friends in America, i 126. (J. C. S.)