"Thomas Clark was born in Herefordshire, England, near the Monmouth border, in 1842. His father was a cattle grower of local repute, who used pure bred Hereford bulls, but did not profess to be a handler of pedigreed strains. Thomas Clark came to the United States in the spring of 1866, and after working for a time on a farm near Pittsfield, Ohio, was employed by a Cleveland butcher having a large city trade. Thrifty and possessed of an inborn faith in the "white faces" of his native land, by dint of hard work and economy in the course of a few years, Clark found himself in a position to get into business in a small way on his own account. As foreman and cutter in Cleveland, he acquired a practical familiarity with what lies under a bullock's hide, that was of distinct advantage in his subsequent career as a breeder and feeder of good cattle. He had an interest in his brother-in-laws little butcher shop in Elyra, but his own fondness for the fields led him to give most of his time to the 80 acres he had under lease near town. He moved on this farm and began breeding Hereford cattle. He bought his first bull, Sir Arthur (705), as a calf, from F. W. Stone of Canada. "In 1877, when Mr. Clark's lease on the Ohio farm expired, seeing that the west was becoming a good market for Herefords, he decided to remove to Beecher, Illinois. He had shown every year at the Ohio fairs, and always won. He made one show at Erie, Pennsylvania, while breeding in Ohio, and another at Jackson, Michigan, in 1876, winning first prize on herd, in competition with seven Shorthorn and Devon herds. This was the first time Herefords had won that prize in Michigan, and the event caused a lot of controversy. Clark had, meantime, sold three calves to T. L. Miller and delivered them personally. He was impressed with the idea that Illinois would be a better location for his cattle business than Ohio. He bought 80 acres of land, about one and one-fourth miles from the village of Beecher. He afterward added forty acres to the home farm, and subsequently, bought twenty-six acres in addition. Mr. Clark always kept his own lands largely in grass, and leased fields for farming purposes. He brought his Ohio herd, numbering at that time about twenty-eight head, to Beecher. "In 1877, Mr. Clark showed a herd at the northern Ohio Fair at Cleveland, winning all prizes shown for."[30] (1857) "There is no question but what the native cattle of the state may be improved by successive generations of judicious breeding, but if in and in-breeding is followed, as at present, the effects will be negative.