While Clara Barton was touring New York State on her lecture tours, she spoke at Dansville, New York, and was entertained at the sanitarium, popularly spoken of as the water cure. On March 16, 1876, a lady from Worcester who had been a patient at Dansville called and spent the greater part of a day with her. She told her that Dansville was “The place to go and get well.” Miss Barton had resumed her diary, and she recorded that this Miss Adams seemed to her “not an enthusiast, but a calm, sensible girl; looks at things in the light of reason and common sense; and I feel that I can take her reports without discount, and her opinions on trust.” Before many days she had practically determined to go to Dansville, and that place became her home for about ten years. At first she lived in the sanitarium; then she bought a home of her own. She adopted the simple habits of life which there were inculcated. Little by little her strength returned, until, instead of being an invalid, she was for her years a woman in remarkably good health. With the return of health came back her determination to establish the American Red Cross, and it was in Dansville that the first local organization in America was established under that name. How she secured the organization and official recognition we shall presently learn. From her letters at this time, two may be selected which give some account of the troubled years through which she had passed, and the great hope which she was now ardently cherishing. One of these was addressed to the Public Printer at Washington, whose services she remembered kindly, and with whom she hoped to have dealings. The other was to her cherished friend, the Grand Duchess Louise of Baden. DANSVILLE, Sept. 8, 1877 JOHN D. DE FRIEZE, ESQ. Public Printer, Washington, D.C. DEAR AND ESTEEMED SIR: