{"id":2109,"date":"2020-01-02T12:37:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T17:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/special-collections\/?page_id=2109"},"modified":"2026-02-06T10:46:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T15:46:42","slug":"henry-clark-and-joseph-foster","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/special-collections\/principals-presidents\/henry-clark-and-joseph-foster\/","title":{"rendered":"HENRY CLARK AND JOSEPH FOSTER – TEACHERS, 1850"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After Josiah Poage left, the Academy began to decline, the school becoming “little more than a primary school.” Henry Clark and Joseph Foster are included as Principals on some lists, but not on others. In any case, their tenure must have been of very short duration, because Josiah B. Poage left in July 1850 and William B. McFarland took over as the new Principal in September 1850. They may have simply been local towns people or Academy teachers who stepped in until a new principal arrived. Virgil Lewis in his history listed them as: “Henry Clark (1st) \/ Joseph Foster (2d),” suggesting that they served one after another for only a brief period. Little biographical information on these men could be located. Henry Clark was probably the Henry Clark listed as living in Cabell County in the 1840 and 1870 Cabell County censuses. He was born in Virginia in 1805. His occupation in 1850 was listed as a merchant. He and his wife, Elizabeth, built the Johnson-Meek home in Huntington, in 1832, which was sold to Samson Sanders in 1843. The 1850 census indicated that he had three children, ages thirteen to seventeen, who may have been attending the academy when Poage left, so he might have agreed to briefly assist the school. The 1880 census has him living with his son in Mercer County, West Virginia.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

There is even less information about Joseph Foster. He may have also been the man by that name who was a charter member of the Grand Lodge of West Virginia, organized in Cabell County in 1867<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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