Staley Nichols Clarke

Staley Nichols Clarke (May 24, 1794 – October 14, 1860) was a U.S. Representative from New York and a prominent local official in western New York during the early nineteenth century. He was born in Prince George’s County, Maryland, on May 24, 1794. He was a member of a family that would become politically active in New York; his brother, Archibald Smith Clarke, also served as a Congressman from New York. Little is recorded about his early childhood in Maryland, but his later movements suggest that he was drawn to the expanding commercial and settlement opportunities on the New York frontier in the years following the War of 1812.

In 1815, Clarke moved to Buffalo, New York, which at that time was a growing community positioned at the western edge of New York State and on the route to the interior. Soon after his arrival, he entered the banking field and was employed as a clerk in the Bank of Niagara. This position placed him within the developing financial and commercial networks of the region and provided experience in business and administration that would shape his subsequent career in land management and public office.

By 1819, Clarke had advanced from banking into land administration, a critical sector in western New York as settlement expanded. That year he became a clerk in the office of the Holland Land Company at Batavia, New York. The Holland Land Company, a major landholding concern, played a central role in surveying, selling, and managing large tracts of land in western New York. Clarke served in the Batavia office from 1819 until January 1822, gaining familiarity with land titles, transactions, and the legal and financial complexities of frontier development.

In January 1822, Clarke was transferred by the Holland Land Company to Ellicottville, New York, where he was appointed the company’s agent for Cattaraugus County. As agent, he oversaw the company’s interests in the county, managing land sales, collections, and relations with settlers. His work in Ellicottville established him as a leading figure in the community and brought him into closer contact with local affairs and county governance at a time when Cattaraugus County was still in the process of organization and growth.

Clarke’s prominence in local business and land management led to a long tenure in county office. In 1824, he was elected Treasurer of Cattaraugus County, a position of substantial responsibility in overseeing public funds and county finances. He served as county treasurer from 1824 until 1841, a span of seventeen years, during which he helped administer the fiscal affairs of a rapidly developing region. His extended service in this role reflected both public confidence in his abilities and his sustained involvement in the civic life of the county.

Building on his local reputation, Clarke entered national politics as a member of the Whig Party. He was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-seventh Congress and served as a U.S. Representative from New York from March 4, 1841, to March 3, 1843. His election placed him in Congress during a period marked by debates over economic policy, banking, and the role of the federal government in internal improvements, issues that would have been familiar to him given his background in banking and land affairs. After serving a single term, Clarke declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1842 and returned to private life and local interests rather than pursue a prolonged congressional career.

In his later years, Clarke continued to reside in Ellicottville, New York, where he had long been established through his work with the Holland Land Company and his service as county treasurer. He died in Ellicottville on October 14, 1860. Clarke was initially interred in Jefferson Street Cemetery, reflecting his close association with the community he had helped to develop. His remains were later reinterred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York, symbolically linking the two principal centers of his life and career in western New York.