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Daniel M. Park, city clerk of De Soto, is a native of Syracuse, N. Y.,
and was born in August, 1850.  He is the only survivor of the three
children born to Robert and Mary C. (Baker) Park, of Scotch-Irish and
English descent, respectively, and natives of New Hampshire and New
York.  Robert Part remained in his native State until eighteen years 
of age, when he went to Boston and learned the trade of a mason in all
its branches.  He subsequently went to Martha's Vineyard and engaged
in contracting, and afterward made a tour of through the now Central
States, then mostly Territories, being at Cincinnati and Galena in 
their early days, finally locating at Syracuse, N. Y., where he was
married.  In 1859 he removed to De Soto, where he passed the remainder
of his life, and died in 1877.  Daniel M. Park was only nine years old
when his parents settled in De Soto, where he was educated in the public 

schools.  When twenty years of age he commenced bridge building on the 

Iron Mountain Railroad, which he followed ten years.  In the fall of 1880 

he went to Kansas City, and established a restaurant and confectionery 

stand, which he conducted six months and afterward was a salesman in that 

city.  Returning to De Soto in the fall of 1881, he was elected city clerk 

of that place, in the spring of 1883, to which position he has since been 

continuously re-elected; after election as city clerk he engaged in the 

real estate and insurance business, in the latter representing the Royal 

of Liverpool, the Commercial Union of London and the Fireman's Fund of 

California.  Mr. Park is a strong Republican, and in the campaign of 1884 

was elected secretary of the Central County Committee for Jefferson County, 

being re-elected in 1886.  At the time of his first election, the 

Republican party in Jefferson County stood 400 to 700 in the minority, and 

in the election of November, 1886, that party elected all but two of their 

candidates, securing the presiding county judge and a member of the Legislature.
He is also a member of the Knights of Honor, and is a young man well esteemed 

both in social and business circles.