Edward Cabot Clark

Edward Cabot Clark (December 19, 1811 – October 14, 1882) was an American lawyer, businessman and investor.

Clark was born on December 19, 1811, in Athens in Greene County, New York. He was the eldest child of three sons born to Nathan Clark (1787–1880) and Julia (née Nichols) Clark (1793–1873), who married in February 1811. His younger brothers were Nathan Henry Clark (who died in infancy), and Nathan Clark Jr., who took over their father's potter company. His father was an early settler of Athens and established the prominent and highly successful firm, Athens Pottery Works.

His maternal grandparents were from Waterbury, Connecticut, and his paternal grandparents were Reuben Clark and Mary (née Peppard) Clark.

After spending four years at the Lenox Academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, where he learned Latin and Greek, in the fall of 1826, Clark began attending Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he graduated in August 1831 and later built Clark Hall.

After graduation from Williams in 1831, Clark studied law with Ambrose L. Jordan (a former New York State Senator and later became the New York State Attorney General in 1848) in Hudson, New York, passed the bar three years later. Clark later set up a solo practice in Poughkeepsie, New York, practicing from 1833 to 1837, before becoming a partner of Jordan and moving the firm to New York City in 1838 where the firm became "the most prestigious law firm in the city."

In 1849, Clark met Isaac Merritt Singer and advised Singer in the naming and patent of his invention, the sewing machine, which "Singer assigned Edward three-eighths of it, apparently in lieu of paying legal fees that the penniless inventor could not afford." In 1851, Singer returned to Clark to defend him in patent litigation initiated by Elias Howe, who had created the lockstitch sewing machine. Later that same year, Clark and Singer co-founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company. In 1856, Clark created the hire-purchase plan, which was the first American installment plan. After Singer's death in 1875, Clark returned to the company, which had been reorganized in 1865, and guided the company to greater success as president from 1875 until his retirement in 1882.

Clark began investing in New York City real estate in the 1870s. He purchased a parcel on Seventh Avenue between West 55th and West 57th Streets where he built a French inspired luxury apartment building known as the "Van Corlear" (named in honor of Anthony Van Corlaer).

Clark also purchased a parcel on Central Park West and 72nd Street where he had Henry Janeway Hardenbergh's architectural firm design and build The Dakota, an apartment house originally known as "Clark's folly" before he adopted the name Dakota (reportedly in reference to its distant location from then fashionable New York, which was akin to the Dakota territory). Construction started in October 1880 and was completed in 1884, two years after Clark's death in October 1882. Upon his death, The Dakota was bequeathed to his 12-year-old grandson and namesake, Edward Severin Clark.