Sampson, Clark Hamilton, merchant and manufacturer, was born September 17, 1850, in the town of Hatfield, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, son of Elijah N and Agnes (Hubbard) Sampson. The founder of this branch of the Sampson family in America was Abraham Sampson, who came from England and joined the Plymouth colony two years after the landing of the "Mayflower," following his brother Henry, who, as a boy of 12 years of age, and the ward of Edward Tilly, had landed from the ship which brought the English Pilgrims to this country. Abraham Sampson married a daughter of Samuel Nash, lieutenant of the Duxbury militia company, and their son, Isaac, married Lydia Standish, a daughter of Alexander and Sarah (Alden) Standish, son and daughter respectively of Captain Miles Standish and John Alden. Among the ancestors, therefore, of Clark H, Sampson in the paternal line were at least three of the most conspicuous of the "Mayflower" compact, and his mother also belonged to an old New England family. His great-grandfather was an officer in the Revolutionary War and the family annals are rich in historic interest. Born and reared in New England, Mr. Sampson was educated under private tutorship and at the schools of Hatfield and Northampton, and was then trained to mercantile pursuits, serving his apprenticeship in a large dry goods store. When twenty-one years of age he became secretary of a manufacturing corporation at Northampton, and for some years thereafter was also a traveling salesman for that establishment. As a traveling representative of this manufactory he visited many of the large cities of the United States-St. Louis being among them-and while largely extending the trade of his house and gaining an enviable reputation as a salesman, he was also gaining knowledge of trade conditions throughout the country, and the commercial advantages of different cities, which proved exceedingly valuable to him in later years. Within a few years after he attained his majority he became connected with the Corticelli Silk Mills, and for some time represented this interest in New York City, living at the famous old St. Nicholas Hotel, located at the corner of Broadway and Spring Street. In 0879 he came to St. Louis and opened a wholesale establishment for the distribution of the products of the Corticelli Silk Mills throughout the West and South, entering at once upon a commercial career which has been continuously successful. The silk business which he established has steadily expanded, until it now occupies a conspicuous position among the great commercial institutions of the city, and this is but one of the may important business enterprises with which he has been identified. A man of practical ideas, large resourcefulness and superior organizing capacity, he as bee conspicuous for his energy and prompt action, and for that tenacity of purpose which apparently recognized no obstacles as insuperable and reduces the failures of life to a minimum. Candid and courteous in manner, and inflexible in rectitude of his business transactions, he has wielded, and still continues to wield, large influence in commercial circles, and is no less esteemed for his moral worth and his devotion to the welfare of his adopted city. In addition to his mercantile interests in St. Louis, he is a stockholder in the Corticelli Silk Company, a director in the St. Louis and Suburban Railway Company, a director of the American Credit Indemnity Company, vice-president of the Missouri Savings and Loan Company, treasurer of the Ludlow Fire Alarm Company, president of the St. Louis Manufacturing Company, and is interested also in other business enterprises. Notwithstanding the fact that his large business interests have been exacting in their requirements, he has seemed always to be able to respond to the demands of the public for his services, and ready to labor for the public good. He has at divers times made enviable records as chairman of the finance committees organized for the purpose of forwarding public movement designed to promote the welfare of the city, and has become famous for raising funds of large proportions in this connection. He was chairman of the finance committee which provided funds for the entertainment of visiting veterans at the Grand Army Encampment, held in St. Louis in 1887. On that occasion he organized a committee of five hundred members, and in a single day raised a fund of $90,000 for entertainment purposes. He was chairman of the finance committee which collected necessary funds and erected the first monument to General U. S. Grant. He was chairman of the delegation through whose labors the National Republican Convention was brought to St. Louis in 1896, and later acted as chairman of the committee on arrangements which had matters pertaining to the holding of the convention in charge. He is president of the St. Louis Exposition & Music Hall Association, of which institution he has for fifteen years been director. He was, in 1896, vice-president of the Merchants' Exchange. He was president of the Missouri State Commission, created by Governor Stephens to represent the interests of Missouri at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, held at Omaha in 1898. At the present time he is a prominent member of the citizens' committee, having in charge preparations for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, to be held in St. Louis in 1903. IN politics he is a Republican of the stalwart type, standing high in the councils of his party, and yet counting among he personal friends and business associates quite as many men of other political creeds as of his own party family. He was at one time a member of the Republican State central committee of Missouri, and sat in the Republican National Convention, held in Minneapolis in 1892, as a delegate from this State. His religious affiliations are with the Methodist Church, with which he is officially connected as a trustee of Lindell Avenue Church. His regular contributions to numerous charitable institutions bear testimony to the warmth of his generosity and the breadth of his liberality. He was the founder of the New England Society, of St. Louis, and has served as its president. He is vice-president of the society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and deputy governor of the Society of Colonial Wars, of Missouri. One of the organizers of the Mercantile Club, he has long been one of its most active members, and served several years as a member of its board of directors. In 1881 Mr. Sampson was married, at Long Branch, New Jersey, to Miss Mary Ryer. Mrs. Sampson's mother was Caroline (Cook) Ryer, a sister of the late Isaac Cook, of St. Louis, and she is a great-granddaughter of Major Daniel Denniston, of New York, who was an officer on General Washington's staff in the War of the Revolution. Their children are Marjorie, Hazel, Maybell and Helen Sampson.

This was copied from the Encyclopedia of the history of St. Louis, vol. 4 found at the Missouri History Museum site also at http://www.archive.org/stream/encyclopediaofhi04hyde#page/n99/mode/2up. I searched for "Sampson" in library and manuscripts.