for 54 years, having joined that congregation on January 16, 1757, with his first wife.
    His epitaph read, "Piety, Benevolence, Virtue and Industry adorned, the life of Thomas Clark, Esq. whose remains are here deposited."
    As his epitaph suggests, Clark was noted for civic and ecclesiastical participation in the community. One of the earliest records of his role in the church is his membership on the committee which arranged the settlement of the Rev. David Bronson in 1764. Bronson was the second settled minister of that church.
    Clark's military career began locally, and he was captain of the first military district of Oxford, when the greens were used for drilling by Oxford men. So, when the state authorized towns to organize their militia for use by the state, Clark naturally assumed a role of leadership in the Derby militia.
    Even at this early date, Clark was known in Derby for his patriotism and his devotion to the cause of freedom. As early as November 29, 1774, he was elected by the Derby Town Meeting to a special committee. The committee was authorized to elect two of its members to be Derby delegates to a county congress, should one be established.
    At the outbreak of hostilities, Clark marched with his band to Lexington, and he spent the next seven years working and fighting for his country's independence. He was among those who took the Freeman's Oath of allegiance to his colonial cause in 1777  in Derby, and in December of that year the Derby Town Meeting named him to a committee to help provide supplies for the soldiers. He also appears on the list of guards at Horseneck, which was one of the duties which the Town Meeting assumed as a measure of local defense.
    On January 8, 1780, Captain Clark enlisted in the Continental armies, and signed on for the duration. He was in Colonel Canfield's Regiment at West Point in September, 1781, when a number of Derby men were serving there.

John Fairchild:
John Fairchild is another person who marched to the relief of Boston in the Lexington Alarm, in Captain Clark's unit.
    There is little information available on this man's service. However, early Oxford Congregational Church records  indicate that a John Fairchild, son of Abial Fairchild, Jr., was