Clerk was in Derry during the siege in 1689 and received a bullet wound on his temple, leaving a sore over which he wore a black patch to the end of his days.
This party attacked him in his own presbytery, but though the matter was referred to the synod, the nonsubscribers were too much occupied in defending themselves to proceed with it.
'I don't think,' writes Livingstone of Templepatrick to Robert Wodrow, on 23 June 1723, 'his reasoning faculty is despisable, but I wish it were equal to his diverting one, for I think he is one of the most comical old fellows that ever was.'
On landing he found that James Macgregor, formerly minister of Aghadowey, and founder of the township of Londonderry on the Merrimack River, had died on 5 March.
Among the quaint anecdotes told of him is one of his criticising to this effect the prowess of St. Peter: 'He only cut off a chiel's lug, and he ought to ha' split doun his held.'