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.
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.
Mary Lowe Dickinson.
Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson, the well-known authoress, was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in 1897. She received a preparatory education in the common schools, then was placed under the instruction of private tutors, and subsequently studied art and literature abroad. Returning to this country, she became head assistant in the Chapman school, Boston, taught for some time in the Hartford female seminary and finally was made principal of the Van Norman institute, New York. Marrying John B. Dickinson, a New York banker, she on his death some years since became professor of belles lettres, emeritus professor and lecturer at Denver university. She is now connected in an official capacity with a number of philanthropic and religious institutions, is the editor of Lend a Hand Magazine, and for ten years has edited The Silver Cross. She has written poems and works of fiction which are illustrative of various lines of philanthropic work.
Thomas Dixon, Jr.
Thomas Dixon, Jr., lecturer, writer and clergyman, was born in Shelby, North Carolina, January 11, 1864, his father being the Rev. Thomas Dixon. He graduated from Wake Forest college, North Carolina, in 1883, from the Greensboro, North Carolina, law school in 1886, and from Johns Hopkins university in 1899. Harriet Bussey became his wife on March 3, 1886, in Montgomery, Alabama. He was a member of the North Carolina legislature from 1884 to 1886. Resigning in order to enter the ministry, he was ordained a Baptist clergyman in 1887, taking a pastorate at Raleigh, North Carolina, and late in the same year accepted a call to Boston. Two years later he came to New York, where he has become noted by reason of his pulpit treatment of topics of the day in a manner uniquely his own. He is the author of several works on religious and social problems, one of which, The Failure of Protestantism in New York, which was published in 1897, has attracted much attention. Mr. Dixon is a forceful speaker, a man of magnetic presence, and possesses the courage of his convictions to a high degree.
Herbert Hungerford.
Herbert Hungerford was born at Binghamton, New York, February 22, 1874. He was brought up on a farm, obtained the groundwork of his education in district schools, and graduated from the academy at Windsor, New York, in 1895. The following year he entered Syracuse university, but was compelled to leave at the close of the freshman year on account of illness. Serving as a private in the First Regiment of New York volunteer infantry during the Spanish-American war, he, while the regiment was stationed at Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, established, edited and published the News Muster, which was a unique contribution to the curiosities of journalism, being the first illustrated newspaper published by a body of soldiers in the field. At the close of the war he returned to Binghamton and there organized the initial branches of the Success league. Later he was called to New York to further and take charge of the development of the organization in question, which is a federation of literary, debating and self-culture societies. The league has developed rapidly under his direction, now having branches in every state and in nearly every city and town of importance in the United States. He was married, in 1898, to Grace M. Whipple, of Binghamton, New York.