Early Life
Clayton was born in Bethel in Delaware County in Pennsylvania, to John and Ann Glover Clayton. He was a direct descendent of William Clayton, originally from Chichester, England. Clayton the immigrant was a close friend of George Fox, founder of the Quakers, and William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. John Clayton was an orchard keeper and carpenter. John and Ann Clayton had ten children in all; six died in infancy.
The young Clayton attended a private military academy in Bristol, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. He later attended engineering school at Wilmington, Delaware.
He moved to Kansas in 1855 and served as an engineer at Leavenworth, Kansas. On April 29, 1861, he is recorded as having a company of militia at Fort Leavenworth. His brothers William and John followed him to the West and, at one point, they all worked in Arkansas.
Read more about this topic: Powell Clayton
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)