II.

Early Years

Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born in Oxford, Massachusetts, on December 25, 1821, the fifth child in her family. She was educated at home, chiefly by her two brothers and two sisters. From 1839 to 1850 she taught in local Massachusetts schools. She later taught in the first public school in New Jersey, in Bordentown. In 1854 she left teaching after her voice failed her in the classroom, and became a clerk in the Patent Office in Washington, D.C.