William Penn Clarke

William Penn Clarke (1817–1903) was an American journalist, lawyer, and politician known for his activity related to the early statehood of Iowa. Clarke was an outspoken abolitionist, Underground Railroad organizer, a member of the Free Soil party, and a prominent lawyer in Iowa City for most of his career until moving to Washington D.C. after the Civil War. During the Civil War, Clarke served as paymaster at the rank of lieutenant colonel for the Union.

Biography William Penn Clarke was born in Baltimore, Maryland on October 1, 1817. While a teenager, Clarke apprenticed with the publisher of a newspaper in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He headed west, spending time in Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Cincinnati, and New Orleans before settling in Iowa City in 1844.

Clarke served as editor of The Iowa Standard, a Whig newspaper published by William Crum, for his first few years in Iowa. As his reputation grew, he began to write political editorials in The Iowa Standard and many other regional newspapers. Clarke began to be involved in politics around 1846, but his popularity reached a pinnacle in 1857 when he participated in Iowa's third constitutional convention that ratified the current state constitution.

After the state constitutional convention of 1857, Clarke served as reporter of the Supreme Court of Iowa until being appointed a paymaster of the federal army in 1863. After the end of the Civil War, Clarke served as chief clerk of the federal interior department in Washington D.C. but was removed from that position by Andrew Johnson. He held a private law practice in Washington D.C. from around 1870 to his death in 1903.

He returned to journalism in 1857-1862 when he published eight volumes of Iowa Reports. These volumes were legal reports and commentary summarizing the proceedings and decisions of Iowa Supreme Court. His collecting habits meant that Clarke was never particularly financially wealthy despite his long and successful career. He reportedly intended to donate his collection of art to the state of Iowa, but it was sold at auction after his death.