Harold Barclay

Born in New York City on August 14, 1872, Harold Barclay spent much of his early life in Cazenovia, New York. An editor’s note to A Doctor in France, 1917-1919 says he briefly attended Harvard, then traveled in Europe and studied music in Germany before choosing medicine as his profession.

Barclay graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1899. He also served as a medical assistant during the Spanish-American War and, when the United States entered World War I in 1917, went to France with the Roosevelt Hospital Unit. His wartime journal was later published as A Doctor in France, 1917-1919, a firsthand account of military medicine and daily life with the American Expeditionary Forces.

The same editor’s note records that he married Helen Fuller Potter in 1906 and that his love of music and travel stayed with him throughout his life. Barclay died in 1922, and his diary was published posthumously in 1923, preserving a thoughtful record of a doctor at war.