December 25, 1821 - Clarissa Harlowe Barton is born in North Oxford, Massachusetts, the youngest of five children of Stephen and Sarah Stone Barton.
1825 - 1836 - Gains an education by attending local schools and home tutoring from older brothers and sisters.
1833 - 1835 - Cares for brother David Barton, injured and bedridden following a fall from a barn roof.
1836 - Noted phrenologist L. N. Fowler advises Clara Barton's parents to have her teach school.
May 1839 - Passes examination and begins teaching career in district schools near Oxford, Massachusetts.
1845 - Establishes a school for the children of her brothers mill workers.
April 19, 1846 - Sister, Dorothea (Dolly) Barton, dies.
1850 - 1851 - Spends a year furthering her own education at Clinton Liberal Institute, Oneida County, New York.
July 18, 1851 - Mother, Sarah Barton, dies.
October 1851 - Travels to Hightstown, New Jersey to visit school friend, Mary Norton, and resumes teaching school.
1852 - 1854 - Establishes first free public school in Bordentown, New Jersey. Enrollment grows rapidly, a new building is built, and a male principal is hired. Miss Barton leaves Bordentown and the teaching profession.
1854 - 1855 - Moves to Washington, D.C. and works as a recording clerk at the U. S. Patent Office for Commissioner of Patents Charles Mason. Her salary is equal to that of the men employed in her office, $1,400 a year.
1855-1857 - The status of female government workers is uncertain. Secretary of the Interior Robert McClelland is opposed to women working in government offices. Miss Barton's position as a clerk is reduced to copyist. She is paid ten cents per each 100 words copied.
1857 - 1860 - Miss Barton returns to Massachusetts and lives with relatives and friends when her position at the Patent Office is eliminated by the Buchanan Administration.
Fall 1860 - Returns to former Patent Office position as a copyist with the election of President Abraham Lincoln.
Forward to Clara Barton Chronology 1861 - 1869
Forward to Clara Barton Chronology 1870 - 1912
