Clarke, Beverly L.

Born: 1809-02-11 Virginia

Died: 1860-03-17 Guatemala

Beverly L. Clarke was an attorney, state legislator, U.S. representative, and diplomat. He attended common schools in his native state. In 1823, he moved to Kentucky, settling in Franklin, where he read law. Clarke graduated from Lexington Law School in 1831, and gained admittance to the Kentucky bar in 1833. He opened a law practice in Franklin. Moving into politics, Clarke was a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1841 and 1842. In 1846, voters in Kentucky's second congressional district elected Clarke as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from March 1847 to March 1849. After his term in Congress, he returned to Kentucky, where he was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1849. In 1855, he ran an unsuccessful campaign as the Democratic nominee for governor of Kentucky. President James Buchanan appointed Clarke as minister to Guatemala and Honduras, a position he held from January 1858 until his death. Clarke married twice and had five children.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 822; "Clarke, Beverly Leonidas," The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans (Boston: Biographical Society, 1904), accessed 14 April 2020, https://books.google.com/books?id=WRoVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:nZ4ne2_7qYQC&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiB0IT_oujoAhVNZ80KHUJTDYcQ6AEwB3oECAgQAg#v=onepage&q=clarke&f=false; Gravestone, Franfort Cemetery, Frankfort, KY.