James Newman Clark was born in 1842 and emigrated from New York to Wisconsin with his parents in 1849. In 1868, he bought a farm on the Chippewa River near Meridean, Wisconsin. Clark’s varied economic ventures of fur trapping, harvesting maple syrup and honey, and growing ginseng, and goldenseal, made him a prosperous farmer. In 1886, he married Jennie Norrish, and together they raised a family of six children.

His diaries indicate that he was an interested bird watcher by the early 1880s. In the late 1880s, he began assembling taxidermy supplies and mounting birds both for himself and for collectors. Although he received no formal training in taxidermy, his mounts were considered to be exceptional and collectors were willing to pay well for them. His interest in ornithology is reflected both in his careful records about the specimens he collected and in his communications with ornithologists concerning correct identification of specimens. The seminal publication Birds of Wisconsin relied heavily on Clark’s notes, and Clark’s home served as an informal ornithological museum. After Clark’s death in 1928, his ornithology collection was donated to the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire in 1959. At UW – Eau Claire, Biology Professor David Crowe studied Clark’s work and curated the Clark specimen collection. The collection is displayed in L.E. Phillips Science Hall on the UW-Eau Claire campus.