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Clara Barton School today
Photo courtesy: Penny Colman |
Click on image to enlarge.
Historical Marker honoring Clara
Barton
Photo courtesy: Penny Colman |
Clara Barton (1821-1912) was born in North Oxford,
Massachusetts, where she taught school as a young woman. In the fall of
1851, she visited friends in Hightstown and was asked to teach in the
Cedar Swamp school there. Realizing there were few free public schools
in New Jersey, Barton became interested in encouraging the development
of free schools throughout the state. In 1852 she traveled to Bordentown
where she received the reluctant approval of the town school committee
to open a free public school where she would teach. School attendance
grew under her direction to include 600 by the end of the first year.
Her school was so successful, that the town voted to
build a new brick school to better accommodate the students. When the
new school opened in 1853, however, a male educator from outside the
town was hired as principal instead of Barton and paid more than twice
her salary. Discouraged, Barton left teaching in 1854 and moved to
Washington, DC. Barton later worked as a nurse in the Civil War and
engaged in relief efforts during the Franco-Prussian War. In 1881 she
founded the American Red Cross which became her major life work.
In 1921, the school children of New Jersey raised the
money to restore her school in her honor. The plaque on the building
reads: "In this building, from 1852 until 1854, Clara Barton, the
founder of the American Red Cross, taught school. In 1853 she
established one of the first free public schools in New Jersey. The
building was restored by the school children of the state and dedicated
on June 11, 1921."
For more information on Barton’s life, see Elizabeth
Brown Pryor, Clara Barton, Professional Angel (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987).
