Clara Barton Schoolhouse | Bordentown, New Jersey

The Clara Barton Schoolhouse

Bordentown is a lovely town on the Delaware River which was critical during the Revolutionary War.

The Clara Barton Schoolhouse in Bordentown, New Jersey was one of the first public schools in the state.

Clara Barton is most famous as a Civil War nurse and as the founder of the American Red Cross.

But before all that, she taught school.

The original schoolhouse was built in 1839.

Clara Barton Was A Teacher Before She Was A Nurse

According to the Bordentown Historical Society:

When Clara Barton began teaching in 1852, the building was described as “dilapidated” and repairs were undertaken at that time. On the first day she taught, she began with only 6 students. After a year, there were 600 students, and by 1853, a new eight room schoolhouse had been built in Bordentown to accommodate them. Thereafter, the original schoolhouse was unused for many years and by 1919, it was in a deteriorated state. It was purchased for $300 at a Sheriff’s Sale by a community minded couple, Mr. and Mrs. George Swift, so that it could be preserved. In September of 1920, they sold it to the President of the State Board of Education for $1 “in trust for and [o]n behalf of the Schoolchildren of the State of New Jersey and to be forever preserved as a memorial of Clara Barton, deceased.”