COVER STORY
Echoes of Civil War
Clara Barton Birthplace, North Oxford
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MORE INFORMATION
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Owned by the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation in Boston, the house is on 68 Clara Barton Road, North Oxford. It is open Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., though Labor Day; Saturdays, 11-4 p.m., through December or by appointment. Admission is $2.50, $1 for ages 6-12. Located off Route 12 south from Turnpike Exit 10. 508-987-5375.
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The cubbyhole desk was fashioned without legs in 1863 by Clara Barton's brother so it could be transported from battlefield to battlefield. On it, the famed Civil War nurse and founder of the American Red Cross wrote hundreds of letters to the families of wounded soldiers. The field desk alone is reason enough to visit the Clara Barton Birthplace Museum in North Oxford.
It's curious that the girlhood home of one of the most extraordinary women in American history remains something of a secret. Only 200 to 400 people a year visit the small, early 19th-century New England Cape, where Barton lived until she was 8. Located in the rural Central Massachusetts town of North Oxford, it's an easy one-hour drive from Boston via the Massachusetts Turnpike.
Barton was also a school teacher, an advocate for public education and women's rights, and an international relief worker who zealously plowed through bureaucratic red tape. Barton family heirlooms and memorabilia are on display, including one of the first Red Cross aid kits and a letter in which Barton describes the influence of Universalism on her life and work. The house also features an unusual indoor well.
A bed displays what is perhaps the museum's most poignant artifact: a quilt presented to Barton in 1876 autographed by 27 Civil War officers and surgeons. "I'm touched, always, by this quilt," says curator Kathy Woods. The nurse who took care of people "could feel warm and wrap herself up in their thanks."
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