JONAS CLARK
(Jonas Gilman Clark)
Clark had Hancock and Adams for dinner. Paul Revere arrived to announce that “the British are coming.” The guests asked Reverend Clark if he thought that the people of Lexington would fight. They did, and some died.
While most American leaders in 1776 advocated separation of church and state, others did not. There probably has been no better statement for religion in government than this one. Essentially, this view has been held by orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims and has been at the heart of every theocracy such as Iran.
The presence of British troops triggered an angry revolution. Ironically, during the Iraq war, this sentiment was communicated over and over again by Iraqi leaders and held by most peoples who undergo military occupation.
This was the outbreak of hostilities of the Revolutionary War.
Jonas Gilman Clark was an American businessman, and the founder of Clark University. He started his business career in Massachusetts, before moving to California in the 1850s. He had a successful entrepreneurial career. He moved to Worcester in 1878, and founded Clark University in that city in 1887.