Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 29

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856

USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I > Part 29

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call for the relief of suffering humanity, or for the benefit of mankind."

Barnes, Robert A., merchant, banker and public benefactor, was born November 29, 1808, in Washington, D. C., and died in St. Louis, April 2, 1892. His father was Jesse Barnes, of Charles County, Maryland; and his mother, Mary Evans, of Prince George County, same State. He was of English descent, his paternal ancestor having emigrated in the year 1662 from the County of Suffolk, England, settling in Maryland near the present site of Port Tobacco. His father died when he was thirteen years of age, and he was placed under the care of an uncle, Richard Barnes, of Louisville, Kentucky, with whom he lived for several years. At that early date the advantages of literary training were meager, embracing only a common school education, which he received; but in after years by extensive reading he became ivell informed on all ordinary subjects, fitting him for the intercourse of cultured society. In equipment for his career the lack of early literary training was amply supplied by a strong character, a vigorous intellect, and especially by sound, common sense, which is nothing but sound judgment applied to the questions of daily life as they arise, and which was one of Mr. Barnes' most marked char- acteristics.

On May 17, 1830, he removed to St. Louis, which he made his permanent home. In his marriage, January 28, 1845, he became con- nected with one of the most prominent families of the city, his wife, Louise de Mun, being the third daughter of Jules de Mun and Isabelle Gratiot.

Mr. Barnes chose for his career commercial pursuits ; and in his later life, retiring from his business as a wholesale grocer. he became a capitalist, three-fourths of his fortune of $1,000.000 consisting of cash and convertible securities, and at the time of his death having on deposit $500,000 in cash, and an additional one-quarter of his estate being in choice stocks and bonds. This immense fortune was the product of his own labor and skill, hav- ing begun business life without capital and without influential patronage. He was a boru financier. In the principles, aimis and methods of business life there are few ex- amples that would be fuller of sound instruc- tion to young business men than his. He laid

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the foundation of his fortune and gives the secret of its growth in what he is reported to have decided when he entered on that first employment in St. Louis: "If I am ever go- ing to get ahead I must some time begin to get ahead, and now is the time to begin ; and I determined that year to save $100, which I did and put at interest and felt myself a cap- italist ; and every year during the rest of my life I always came out ahead." Several years before his death he placed in the hands of trustees $27,000 in bonds for the benefit of the St. Louis Methodist Orphans' Home. but with the strict injunction that it was to be kept secret while he lived; and a similar injunction was imposed in reference to his purpose, necessarily confided to one of his trustees, to devote his estate to the found- ing of a hospital, which was formed and pro- vided for by will ten years before his death. His benevolence was not, however, merely sentimental, and therefore indiscriminate and unintelligent. He seldom, if ever, gave to the itinerant beggar unless he was also a helpless cripple. He believed everyone not mentally or physically disabled ought to earn his own living, and could if he was anxious to do it, and if he would not work he ought to starve.

The bequests of his will, with few excep- tions, were in the line of benefactions to the poor and friendless. In those made to nephews and nieces there appears the thought and purpose to limit the amount to each, so as not to release them from self-help, while enough to lay the foundation of a fortune if they had the ambition and energy to earn it. The beneficiaries were orphan asylums and private hospitals and institutions for the care of friendless old men and women, and the re- mainder, estimated at $1,000,000, for the erection and maintenance of a hospital "for sick and injured persons, without distinction of creed."

Barnes, Seth S., merchant and railroad manager, was born July 12, 1845, in Ripley County, Indiana, son of Seth S. and Elizabeth (Love) Barnes, the first named a native of New York State, and the last named of Ken- tucky. The elder Barnes, who was a farmer and dealer in live stock, died in Ripley County, Indiana, in 1847, when the son was two years of age. The latter, when ten years of age, came to New Madrid County, Missouri, where

he attended school a portion of the time, and found employment the remainder of the time. When the Civil War began, and in the year 1861, he enlisted in the United States Navy and was assigned to duty on the ironclad gun- boat, "Chillicothe." on the Mississippi River. For four years, thereafter, he was in active service in this connection and was mustered out in June of 1865, being one of the twenty- five out of one hundred and thirty com- rades who enlisted with him, to escape being killed or wounded in action. Soon after his discharge from the naval service, he settled on a farm in Henderson County, Illinois. Ile was married in that county and remained there until 1872, when he returned to New Madrid County, and established his home on a farm, which he had purchased there some two years earlier. In 1881, he removed from his farm to New Madrid and engaged in mer- chandising at that place. He was appointed postmaster of New Madrid and held the office for two years, when he resigned on account of ill health. At the same time he sold a half in- terest in his store, and leaving the business in charge of his partner, returned to the country, hoping through this change to regain his physical vigor. He resumed merchandising in 1886, and was successfully engaged in this business until January 15, 1888, when his entire stock of merchandise and also his household goods were destroyed by fire. He at once rebuilt the store, and thereafter continued his merchandising operations on a larger scale than before until 1899, when he sold out and became sole owner of the Memphis & St. Louis Railroad, which he had helped to build. Since then he has given his entire time to the improvement and operation of this road. While this is a short line of railway, it runs through a rich farming and timber country, has a good business, and has aided greatly to develop the region lying between New Madrid and Portageville and adjacent to those towns. Mr. Barnes has been one of the most active and energetic of the business men in New Madrid County, and is one of those contribu- ting most largely to the development of a region which is rich in natural resources. In politics he is a Republican, but has never been an active politician. In September of 1886 he married Miss Laura Marston. Their children are William, Charles, Mabel and Cora Barnes.

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BARNES MEDICAL COLLEGE-BARNEY.

Barnes Medical College .- This in- stitution was founded in 1892, by Drs. Pinck- ney French, Charles H. Hughes and A. N. Carpenter. It was incorporated under the laws of Missouri the same year, and named in honor of Robert A. Barnes, the noted mer- chant and philanthropist of St. Louis, who left a bequest of more than a million dollars, to be used in founding and maintaining a hospital in that city. Dr. Hughes was chosen presi- dent of the college at its organization, and has since continued to fill that position. The in- stitution has had a prosperous career and a large number of students were enrolled at the beginning of the year 1899.

Barnett, George Ingram, architect, and at the time of his death the oldest mem- ber of his profession in St. Louis, was born in Nottingham, England, March 20, 1815, and died in St. Louis, December 29, 1898. He was the son of Absalom and Sarah (Ingram) Barnett, both of whom belonged to old Eng- lish families of highest respectability. His father was the senior elder of the Baptist Church in Nottingham, a position which car- ried with it many of the duties which usually devolve upon a clergyman. At his house the leading Baptist ministers of England often visited ; among them Andrew Fuller, who married a sister, and Robert Hall, the most eloquent man the denomination has ever produced, and one of the most famous. Mr. Barnett was educated at a good school in Nottingham, and, while a school boy, saw the funeral cortege of Lord Byron arrive from London on its way to the family vault in Huchnall, Torkard Church, near Newstead Abbey. He left school at an early age, and, as a then indispensable preliminary to the pro- fession of architecture. learned the trade of a practical carpenter. He was afterward ap- prenticed to Patterson & Hine, the leading architects in that part of England, and re- mained with them six years. The first out- side work assigned to him by the firm was the superintendence of important changes and re- pairs at Annesley Hall, the ancestral home of Mary Chaworth= Byron's "Mary." He came to America in 1839, and after a stay of some months in New York reached St. Louis in the spring of the following year, and resided there until his death. His first professional work in St. Louis was the drawing of a per- spective view of the present courthouse for

Singleton & Foster, then the only architects in the town, who had charge of the construc- tion. Shortly afterward he was engaged by Lewis & Clark as assistant in the planning of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, and when that was completed he opened an office of his own. Mr. Barnett in his long professional life probably did far more work than any other one architect in St. Louis. Among the more prominent structures erected by him are the present Southern Hotel, as well as its predecessor ; the present Lindell Hotel, Barr's Dry Goods Store, the Equitable Building, the Third Presbyterian, the Centenary and Union Methodist Churches, and the water-works building at Bissell's Point, while his private residences, stores, etc., are innumerable.

Barney, Charles E., merchant, was born May 25, 1834, in the little city of Water- ville, Maine, and died in St. Louis July 11. 1898. His father was a furniture manufacturer in moderate circumstances, and the son was born to a condition of life which impressed upon him the necessity of honest effort and the practice of strict economy on his part in early childhood. When he was eleven years old he was put out to service as a farmer's boy, and a plain English education, obtained in the schools of Waterville, constituted the scholastic equipment with which he entered upon a commercial career in later years. After working on a farm until he was sixteen years old he went to Chelsea, Massachusetts, celebrated for its manufactures of tiles and pottery, and clerked for two years thereafter in a grocery store in that city. Then he went to Boston, the "Mecca" of every ambitious New England youth who goes in search of fame and fortune in the commercial world, and in that city gained his first knowledge of the dry goods trade. From Boston he went to New York in 1852, and was an employe of the dry goods house of Lord & Taylor thereafter until 1859. He came to St. Louis in the year last named, and during the next year was connected with the dry goods house of C. B. Hubbell, Jr., & Co., of that city. In 1860 he transferred his services to the firm of McClelland & Seruggs, and thus began his connection with the great dry goods house with which he was so conspicuously identified during the remainder of his life. Changes in the partnership, which occurred from time to time, were followed by changes of the firm

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name successively to W. L. Vandervoort & Co., Vandervoort, McClelland & Co., and the Scruggs, Vandervoort & Barney Dry Goods Company. Under the name last mentioned this noted establishment, which has long been a leading dry goods house of St. Louis and is known throughout the entire Southwest, was incorporated in 1883. Of this corpora- tion Mr. Barney was vice president, and his connection with the house as employe, part- ner, stockholder and manager extended over a period of thirty-eight years.

Barney, Reuben, physician and sur- geon, was born at Arlington, Vermont, April 20, 1844, son of Nathan F. and Fanny (Can- field) Barney. His first American ancestor was Jacob Barney, who was provisional Gov- ernor of what is now the State of New Hamp- shire, and lived at Guildford. Dr. Barney's great-grandfather, Constant Barney, served in the Revolutionary War. Shortly before the war he removed to Arlington, Bennington County, Vermont, where his house is still oc- cupied by his descendants. Reuben Barney. Dr. Barney's grandfather, was judge of a court in Vermont. Nathan F. Barney, his father, was an enterprising and prosperous business man, an extensive farmer. lumberman and manufacturer. On the maternal side he is a descendant of the Canfield family of the New Haven colony in Connecticut. Dr. Barney re- ceived his education at a select private school in Arlington and then turned his attention to medicine, studying with Dr. I. G. Johnson, of Saratoga Springs, New York, and in the winters attended the Albany Medical Col- lege of Albany, New York, where he gradu- ated in 1865. Previous to this, with the pur- pose of availing himself of every opportunity to become proficient in the profession to which his life was to be devoted. he spent two years in the United States Army medical service at the hospital in Boston, where he was executive officer for a year, and where he learned much that was advantageous to him afterward. Af- ter graduating he went to Long Island College Hospital, where he took an additional course of one year. After finishing there and feeling himself thoroughly equipped for the practice of his profession, he settled at Hoffman's Ferry, New York. He practiced at that place for two years and then resolved to come west, and accordingly came to Missouri and located at Chillicothe. There he found himself in the

midst of all the conditions and inducements of usefulness and success, and. with the active and enterprising spirit that distinguishes him. set to work to improve the opportunity for all it offered and promised. Under his skillful and successful treatment of cases to which he was called his practice grew rapidly, and his reputation as surgeon and physician extended to the surrounding region, until he found him- self obliged to make special arrangements for the accommodation of his patients. For a time he availed himself of the advantages of St. Mary's Catholic Hospital in Chillicothe, but this arrangement was attended with some inconvenience, and the increasing practice re- quired every facility for bringing the physician and his patients in frequent contact, and in 1899 he carried out a purpose long cherished by building a sanitarium within easy reach and fitted with all modern appliances for the treatment of afflicted persons. This building is built of brick, heated with steam, lighted with electricity and gas, and provided with accommodations for twenty-five patients, and within less than a year of its completion the need of it was demonstrated by having its ca- pacity almost fully taxed. In this establish- ment, which is known as the Barney Sanita- rium, the skillful and enterprising surgeon and physician enjoys special advantages for dealing with diseases, and his reputation for successful treatment extends over all north Missouri. The staff of the sanitarium consists of Dr. Reuben Barney, Sr., president and gen- eral practitioner : Dr. Reuben Barney, Jr., gynecologist ; Dr. Mortimer D. Barney, nose and throat diseases, bacteriologist and micro- scopist : and Hawley N. Barney, eye and ear specialist and neurologist. Dr. Barney has been United States examining surgeon for pensions for twenty-eight years, and he is now surgeon for three railroads-the Chicago, Mil- waukee & St. Paul, the Hannibal & St. Jo- seph, and the Wabash-a proof of the confi- dence that intelligent railroad men have in his skill and experience. IIe is also surgeon to St. Mary's Hospital, member of the National So- ciety of Railway Surgeons, member of the American Medical Association and the State and District Medical Societies, med- ical examiner for all the leading life in- surance companies of the United States, and has been president of the Chillicothe Board of Health, the City Medical Society and the Grand River District Medical Society. He is

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an active and influential Freemason, and has been worshipful master of Chillicothe Lodge No. 333 ; high priest, Royal Arch Chapter No. 30, and eminent commander of Paschal Com- mandery. He is a Scottish Rite Mason, and a noble of the Mystic Shrine; past thrice illus- trious master of Chillicothe Council No. 28, Royal and Select Masons ; past worshipful mas- ter of Protective Lodge No. 29, Ancient Order of United Workmen, and past grand high priest Grand Chapter Royal Arch Ma- sons of Missouri. At the present time (1900) he is grand commander Knights Templar of Missouri, and deputy grand master of Grand Council Royal and Select Masters of Missouri ; district deputy grand master Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and past commander Tyndal Post 29, Grand Army of the Republic. His spirit of enterprise and his sound judg- ment in matters of business give great value to his name, and he has been president of the Five Wells Land & Cattle Company at Mid- land, Texas, which has 350,000 acres of land under fence. He is, and for the past ten years has been, president of the Missouri Vineyard Company at Fowler, California, which has in cultivation 160 acres in raisin grapes; he has been for twelve years president of the Chillicothe Loan & Building Association, and he is president of the Masonic Temple Asso- ciation, a director in the Chillicothe Cemetery Association, and a stockholder and one of the organizers of the Citizens' National Bank of Chillicothe. He was also president of the Pub- lic School Board of Chillicothe for ten years. Dr. Barney was married, November 15, 1866, to Mattie Prindle, of Arlington, Vermont. They have four children, all sons. One of them, Percy Canfield Barney, is an engineer in the United States Navy at Boston, and the other three are educated and accomplished physicians, associated with their father in the Barney Sanitarium.

Barmim, Theron, one of the most noted old-time hotel-keepers of St. Louis, was born in Addison County, Vermont, April 23, 1803. During the carly years of his life he was engaged in agricultural pursuits, but in 1821 went to Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, where he clerked in a store until 1827. In that year he went to Baltimore to take the position of confidential clerk to his uncle. David Barnum, who gave to Barmum's Hotel of that city the deserved fame of being at that

time "the best hotel in the United States." There he was trained to the business which made him famous as a boniface in St. Louis. In 1840 he came to that city and took charge of the City Hotel, located at the corner of Third and Vine Streets. After keeping this house twelve years he sold out, and later took charge of what became known as "Barnum's Hotel," located at the corner of Second and Walnut Streets. Prior to the Civil War this was one of the widely known hotels of the West, and no hotel man of the region was more popular with the public than was Mr. Barntim.

Bar of Buchanan County. - The first circuit court in Buchanan County was held in the store room of Joseph Robidoux'in 1839. One of the lawyers present at that court was William Marshall Paxton, a nephew of Chief Justice Marshall. He is still a practicing at- torney at Platte City, Missouri. Austin A. King, afterward Governor, was the circuit judge; Peter H. Burnett, of Platte County, was circuit attorney. Andrew S. Hughes was the only resident attorney. In 1840 the court was removed to Sparta, where it remained un- til 1847, when the county seat was permanently located at St. Joseph. While the court re- mained at Sparta, among the resident lawyers there were Amos Rees, a brilliant young law- yer, who soon removed to Platte City, where he had a large practice, and to Leavenworth in 1854, as a Kansas pioneer. He died in 1885, at the age of eighty-four, full of years and honors.

Henry M. Vories, a Kentuckian of great original genius, followed the county seat to St. Joseph, and died in 1876, holding the posi- tion of Supreme judge of the State. His epi- taph can be lined in the Shakespearian phrase, "He was an honest man," and the writer of this sketch can add : a great one. Lawrence Archer, a South Carolinian, who left St. Jo- seph in 1850, rose to eminence in California. and still lives at San Jose, in that State.

James B. Gardenhier, a Tennesseean, young, ambitious and talented, was appointed Attor- ney General by Governor King in 1851, and died at Jefferson City long before his powers of intellect had mattired. Robert M. Stewart, afterward Governor, one of the brainiest men that ever filled the gubernatorial chair of Mis- souri, was born in New York in 1815. He emigrated to Missouri in 1837, edited a paper

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in St. Charles in 1838, settled in DeKalb in 1839, and soon afterward defeated Jesse B. Thompson, the leading Democrat of the county, for the Legislature. Ilis great feat was the building of a railroad from Hannibal to St. Joseph. In 1848, as a Senator, he se- cnred the passage of a bill chartering the road and then traveled over the line for months, be- ing often carried from the hack to the hotel, as he was bent almost double with rheuma- tism. He obtained the means for a survey and afterward, in 1852, a land grant of 68,000 aeres. In 1855, as Senator, he procured State aid by passing the bill over the veto of Sterling Price, the Governor. He gave way to habits of dis- sipation in his later years, which ended his life in a cloud, and prevented his being nomi- nated and elected Vice President in 1864, in- stead of Andrew Johnson. The idea had been canvassed and an agreement reached to put on the ticket with Mr. Lincoln a loyal man from a slave-holding State. A man born in the North was preferred, and Governor Stewart was the choice of a majority of the intimates of Mr. Lincoln, but on the momentous day Governor Stewart appeared in the convention hall at Philadelphia in bad condition and lost the prize. He died in St. Joseph in 1870. The next attorney at Sparta was Peter H. Burnett, the circuit attorney for the Platte Purchase, who emigrated to Oregon in 1843 and became its chief justice, and from there went to Cali- fornia in 1848, and became the Governor and first chief justice of that State, dying in San Francisco, May 17, 1894, at the age of eighty- seven years. The next in date of settlement was William B. Almond, who lived a life full of incident and romance. Born in Virginia, as a youth he reached St. Louis in the early thirties, and joining the Missouri Fur Com- pany spent several years on the Yellowstone, trapping. Returning he stopped at Lexing- ton, read law and married, and in 1840 moved to old Sparta and, after two years, back to Platte City. He went to California in 1849, was elected district judge the same year, re- turned to Platte City the next year, and in I851 was elected circuit judge of the St. Joseph Circuit. Called back to California the next year on business he again became a judge there, in the trying times of the vigilance con- mittee. He soon returned to Platte City, and went over to Kansas to try and settle the vexa- tions political questions involved in her terri- torial pupilage, and died in Leavenworth in

1860, of Bright's disease. Another resident attorney at Sparta was Benjamin F. Loan. Born in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, he came to Jackson County as a boy, studied law and settled in old Sparta in the fall of 1840. He won fame and fortune by his ability, hon- esty and devotion to his profession, and died in St. Joseph in 1881, after serving six years in Congress and two years in the Civil War as a brigadier general. William Cannon, a Tennes- seean of the Andrew Jackson school, was a rough and unhewn, but a strong and success- ful man, a logical lawyer. He emigrated to Texas in 1845 and died in 1852. Willard P'. Hall, born at Harper's Ferry in 1820, was of Puritan stock and Revolutionary ancestry. He had a clear and strong mind, and was the successor of Burnett as circuit attorney in 1843, and an elector of James K. Polk in 1844. In the spring of 1846 he was nominated as the Democratic candidate for Congress in his dis- trict, and during the canvass he volunteered as a private in the company of Captain O. P. Moss, of Clay County, to serve in the Mexican War, in the Missouri regiment commanded by Colonel A. W. Doniphan, and at Santa Fe was detailed to assist in preparing a code of laws. He was elected to Congress and served six years ; was brigadier general in the Civil War ; was Lieutenant Governor and Governor of the State. He twice refused a position on the Su- preme bench of the State, tendered him by Governor Hardin in 1876. The writer of this article was solicited by the Governor to urge his acceptance of the commission and he de- elined each time. He died at his home in St. Joseph in 1882, at the age of sixty-two years. The last, but not the least, of the old Sparta lawyers was Andrew S. Hughes, a Kentuckian of Revolutionary ancestry, sent by President Adams to Missouri as agent for the Indians in the Iowa Territory. He had charge of the

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Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 29

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n Publication date: 1901 Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors Number of Pages: 856

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856