bordentown, new jersey, grew it from 3 students to over 600, and then when the town decided that they wanted this to be a permanent fixture in their community, they hired a man to become the principal. back in those days, women weren't considered competent to do things like that, and so even though clara had built the place from ground up, when she was replaced, she was, let's say, not quite very, you know -- a little bit on the insulted side, and so she left bordentown pretty quickly and decided to move down to washington, d.c. she said she wasn't sure why, but she did come down to washington. i guess a change of pace. she was very independent, didn't want to be considered a dependant of her family in massachusetts, so she was really trying to develop her own independent life. and washington was a good place to do that. she was such a good organizer and clerk, and she had fantastic handwriting for the day, that she was able to secure a position through another man from massachusetts, charles mason, who was the commissioner of patent to work as his confidential clerk at the same rate