That most noted and beloved of humanitarians, Clara Barton, is of Puritan ancestry, being born in Oxford, Massachusetts, in 1830. She was the daughter of Captain Stephen and Sally Stone Barton, and was educated at Clinton, New York. When still very young she founded a seminary for girls at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Later, she became principal of the first public school in Bordentown, New Jersey, resigned through sickness and was the first woman to hold a regular clerical position under the government, afterward being appointed to the patent office at Washington, District of Columbia. During the Civil war she was instrumental in forming the famous sanitary commission which did such magnificent work for the sick and wounded at Bull Run, Antietam, Spottsylvania and many other battlefields of the war. When the Andersonville prisoners were released they received timely aid through her relief work, and by her earnest efforts the fate of over thirty thousand missing men was ascertained by means of the bureau of records which she organized at Washington. During the Franco-Prussian war she and her assistants nursed the sick and wounded in Strasburg and Metz. In the days of the Commune she entered Paris, distributing food and clothing to the hungry and starving. On her return to the United States in 1873, she started the successful movement to obtain recognition of the projected Red Cross society from the government. In 1882 the society was organized and she became its first president. In that capacity she has superintended the work of giving help to sufferers from the Michigan forest fires, the earthquake at Charleston, floods on the Ohio and Mississippi, 1884; the Johnstown flood, the Galveston disaster, 1900, etc. Wherever there has been a cry from the sufferer, Clara Barton, often in the face of almost insurmountable difficulties and constant danger, has ever responded to the call of duty.
Francis Edward Clark, the president of the United Societies of Christian Endeavor comes of New England stock, although he was born in Aylmer, province of Quebec, September 12, 1851. His parents died when he was a child, and his uncle, the Rev. E. W. Clark, adopted him and took him to Claremont, New Hampshire. Thus it was that he acquired a new name and country. Education and home influence inclined him to the ministry, and he early decided to become a clergyman. After an academic and college course—the latter at Dartmouth—he studied theology for three years at Andover, and was later appointed pastor of Williston church, Portland, Maine, a small mission from which he built a large Congregational church. One of his many ideas was the exaction of a pledge of faithful Christian endeavor from the members of his Bible classes. The results were of so marked a nature that the well-known society of which he is president was a consequence thereof. Churches of many denominations endorsed the idea, and within a few years national conventions of the organization were held which made the world think that a tidal wave of religious enthusiasm was sweeping over it. An organ of the movement was founded, entitled “The Golden Rule,” with Dr. Clark as editor-in-chief. The work continued to grow, and finally he was compelled to resign from the pastorate in order to devote himself to the needs of the society. The movement has extended all over the world, and in connection with it he has organized other societies, such as The Tenth Legions, The Macedonian Phalanx, The Christian Association, and Quiet Hour. Dr. Clark was married in 1876 to Harriet E. Abbott. He is the author of several books dealing with his life work.