Simsbury Historian: Dr. Lucius Israel Barber

      There aren’t too many people who have served in two different state legislatures, but Lucius Israel Barber (1806-1889) is one of them. To be precise, he served in a state and territorial legislature - his home state of Connecticut, and Wisconsin Territory during his young adventuring days. 

     Lucius was the son of Calvin Barber and Roena Humphrey. His father was a noted stonemason, quarry owner and gravestone carver. Calvin and Roena both came from Puritan families that settled in Connecticut in the 1630s. 

     When Calvin was only five, his father died, leaving his mother in dire economic straits. She was forced to apprentice him at the age of eight to his brother-in-law Jonathan Pettibone, something little Calvin opposed. Jonathan taught him the craft of stone cutting and masonry. His training helped him to be a successful adult. Calvin also became a community leader, serving as justice of the peace from 1806 to 1815, in the local militia where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and a leader in the county Whig party.

     Lucius was the seventh of Calvin’s 12 children. He was sent to Amherst Academy in Massachusetts. Today it is an hour and a half’s drive from Simsbury, but it would have been a trip of several days by stagecoach. The academy was established in 1814 and taught the Latin and Greek curriculum expected of the college bound. In 1815 a group of ministers met to discuss founding a college to train young men for the ministry. The college was to “afford its instructions gratuitously to indigent young men of promising talents and hopeful piety.” College then was for a tiny, elite few who planned careers in ministry, medicine or law. A charity fund of $50,000 was raised to provide free education for the region’s farmers’ sons.

     Lucius advanced to the new Amherst College after graduating from the academy. He was in the Class of 1826 and read his oration titled “Influence of Literature” during commencement ceremonies. An Amherst College compendium of alumni states that Lucius taught in North Carolina for two years beginning immediately after college, but that may be off a bit. In May 1827, Lucius wrote a distant cousin, Amos Augustus Phelps. Amos graduated from Yale in 1826 and went south to teach. Amos later became a minister and abolitionist of some renown. The letter has been saved:

     Oh the misery of having to compose a set, proper, well-worded, correctly pointed, polite and elegant epistle!” says a celebrated author – but such misery I never endured and such an epistle you need not expect from me. Indeed, you may be surprised at receiving a letter from me – So, that without any complimentary flourishes or a profession of attachment, I shall proceed to state the object of my writing, not doubting that you will pardon the intrusion. A few days since Pa was at your Mother’s and she informed him that you were expecting to remain in your present employment only until August and that there might be a possibility of me taking your place. Should such be the case or should there be any school in your neighborhood where a teacher is wanted, if you would take the trouble to drop me a line immediately you will greatly oblige. 

     Your sincere friend, 

     Lucius I. Barbour. 

     Please excuse all errors as when I commenced I expected the mail any moment.

     The Yankee schoolteacher in the South was a phenomenon from the late eighteenth century till 1860. Originally, English tutors were brought over to teach the children of the rich. Plantation owners preferred college graduates teaching their children. Of course there were Southern college graduates, but they were from an economic social class that had neither the necessity nor the inclination to teach, according to historians. Teaching in the South was appealing to the New Englanders because it paid better than most New England schools, and instead of “boarding ‘round,” those employed on plantations enjoyed their own room, a servant (read ‘slave’) to do their laundry, and often had a horse, gun and library at their disposal. For those who taught on a plantation versus an academy, they had a very small “class”- just the plantation owner’s children - and few pressures. For young men like Lucius, teaching for a year or two before moving on to a theological seminary or the study of law was a respectable endeavor. 

     In 1828 he did what the Yankee schoolteacher was expected to do. He returned North, studying medicine, first in New York, then under Dr. Amariah Brigham back in Hartford. He also attended lectures in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and at the University of Pennsylvania where he received a medical degree in 1835. He was as educated as a doctor could be in his day.

West to Wisconsin

     Beginning when Lucius was a child, relatives were leaving Connecticut, moving west. First several of his uncles went to Western New York. Other relatives ventured farther, to Ohio. In Lucius’ young adulthood, after the Indian Removal Act of 1830, many were seeking their fortunes in Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. Some went for farmland. Others went in the hope of making a killing in land speculation and mercantile enterprises. Lucius moved to Wisconsin in 1835, a year before Wisconsin Territory was created. 

     “Moved to Wisconsin” – how inadequate those words are to describe how settlers made their way to these new lands. Again and again in newspapers and other media, editors would write things like, “it was a difficult journey,” or “They suffered the usual hardships of early pioneer life,” without a single detail. Or, maddeningly, they would say time or space prevented them from sharing the fascinating stories they heard from their source. 

     In 1871 and 1872, the Old Settlers’ Club in Jefferson County, Wisconsin shared tidbits of letters with reminiscences from Lucius. These shed a tiny bit of light on his journey.

     “The “Old Settlers!” How I should love to be present and talk over with them our first visit to Milwaukee. The scenes and first impressions; our first acquaintances formed and friendships cemented…..Of our long and perilous voyage, a week on passage, to Green Bay, to attend the land sale, about sixty of us, on board the schooner Bridget, of our grounding upon the rocks of “Death’s Door” in a fog, of our Settlers League for protection of our claims from the grasp of the horrid land speculator, of the perils of our return voyage – how narrowly we escaped shipwreck on an island in the bay, saved only by the skill and energy and presence of mind of Captain Sanderson, who for the occasion took command of the vessel and then of the [?] of 36.  

     At first, he made a living practicing medicine in the little village of Milwaukee and in Jefferson County. Others who arrived in Milwaukee when he did described the cornfields, wigwams and the cabins of the few white settlers. Lucius himself later mentioned his acquaintance with Solomon Juneau, who lived in a cabin on the bank of the Milwaukee River. Juneau was a French-Canadian fur trader who became a land speculator and Milwaukee’s first mayor. He was known for his friendliness to newcomers.

     Although he would be called Dr. Barber for the rest of his life, Lucius abandoned the practice of medicine, engaging in real estate and politics. The national Panic of 1837 ground business to a halt and left many land speculators penniless. Things would not begin to improve until 1841. Meanwhile, Lucius was active in Whig politics and in 1839 the governor appointed him a notary public and justice of Jefferson County. He was elected to represent Milwaukee County in the first Wisconsin Legislative Assembly. From 1840 to 1845 he served as county clerk and clerk of the U.S. District Court of Jefferson County. He was also elected town clerk of Watertown in 1842. It was a raw pioneer village of log cabins. That year, the first store and first blacksmith shop opened.

     He married Marion P. Brown, a native of Hartford County, Connecticut, in 1843. Their only child, a daughter, was born in 1845 and died soon after birth. Marion died too. Lucius' father Calvin died in March 1846, and perhaps this combination of deaths spurred him to move back home. Lucius lived the rest of his life in Simsbury.

Back Home

     Lucius took up farming when he returned east. His political career resumed. He was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly in 1850 and served as judge of probate in Simsbury from 1858 to 1868. In 1855 he was appointed to the board of the Hartford Company Savings Association.

     He also retained interests in Wisconsin as an 1858 item in the Janesville newspaper showed. “Our friend, Dr. Lucius I. Barber, of Hartford, Conn., has recently been in Jefferson, where he had large sums of money due him upon land contracts, mortgages, etc., which the debtors could not pay,” the editor wrote. But instead of repossessing the land or adding a five percent late fee as most did, “Dr. Barber extended the times of payment and in some cases even reduced the rates of interest from 12 percent to 10. We hope other creditors in these pinching times will “go and do likewise.”

     The pinching times referred to was the Panic of 1857, remembered by historians today as the first worldwide economic crisis. The U.S. did not recover from this until the Civil War. Lucius retained ownership of Wisconsin property until his death.

     He stayed single for a long time after Marion’s death. In 1860 he was living with his sisters Abigail, Achsah Delight and Roena, and his 15-year old niece Marion, his sister Julia’s daughter. Marion was born the year Lucius’ wife Marion died and almost certainly was named after her. Abigail and Roena were widowed; Achsah’s husband lived in Massachusetts. 

     On the 1870 census, Roena had gone to live with their sister Lura; Abigail and Achsah had passed away. Marion, age 25, remained with her uncle as housekeeper. She would not marry until 1878, but she was replaced as his housekeeper before that. Lucius finally remarried, to someone who might have been one of Marion’s friends, Abbie Sexton. She was just a year older than Marion - 28, and Lucius was 67. 

     In the latter part of his life he devoted considerable attention to Simsbury history. He collected a lot of materials and wrote articles for the Hartford newspapers. He also wrote a 429-page book, A Record and Documentary History of Simsbury, 1643-1888. It wasn’t published until 42 years after his death. It’s a shame he did not write his own fascinating story.

     

Death and How He Is Remembered 

     Lucius died in 1889. His obituary was unusual in that it had a physical description of him. “He was a tall, stately figure with long gray hair and erect though slender frame, and was frequently seen on our Hartford streets where his presence always attracted attention,” the Hartford Courant said. 

     In his will, Lucius left all his Simsbury property to Abbie, who was 53. He created a trust to be managed by his nephew Chauncey D. Humphrey, for the benefit of his sister Julia, Chauncey’s mother, who was widowed. By the time he wrote the will, Julia was his only surviving sibling. Chauncey was to sell all of Lucius’ Wisconsin property and invest the money to create investment income for Julia. After her death, he directed that the remaining funds would be divided into nine shares as follows: one share to the children of his nephew Allen McLean, who died in 1882; one share each to nephews Calvin and Thomas McLean, and one share each to Julia's children Chauncey, Marion, Ellen, Justine, Jarvis and Mary. The McLeans were his sister Emeline’s children. He specified where certain treasured items should go. Portraits of each of his parents and his mother’s 1806 bible, for example, should go to Julia. He gave Chauncey his grandfather’s bible. Marion, Ellen, Justine and Mary got silver tablespoons and teaspoons.

     Abbie shared her husband’s love of local history. She also was like many middle- and upper-class white women of her time who got very interested in proving her “Americanness,” joining the Daughters of the American Revolution. Abbie was her parents’ only surviving child and never had children. When she died, she was survived only by some cousins. She left an important bequest that is the reason her and Lucius’ names are locally remembered. She left money and all of her husband’s collection of documents, artifacts and articles to create a “Historical Room” in Simsbury. This grew into the Simsbury Historical Society. It was her chapter of the D.A.R. that published Lucius' book at last in 1931.

 

This is Story No. 7 in the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” Challenge.

Note: My third great-grandfather, Myron Fitch Barbour, and Lucius Israel Barber were first cousins. Myron’s father Roswell was Calvin Barber’s brother. 

     Thomas Barber, the carpenter’s apprentice who is our immigrant ancestor from England, was the great-great-great-grandfather of Lucius and Myron. 

Sources:

Newspapers

     “Appointments By the Governor,” Wisconsin Express (Madison, Wisconsin), 21 Dec 1839, p. 2.

     “Legislative Proceedings Report,” The Telegraph-Courier (Kenosha, Wisconsin), 13 Dec 1842. p. 1. 

     “Whig Convention,” Wisconsin Express (Madison, Wisconsin), 8 Aug 1844, p. 2. 

     “Fourth Annual Pioneer Festival,” The Watertown Chronicle (Watertown, Wisconsin), 2 Feb 1853, p. 1. 

     “An Example To Be Followed,” Janesville Daily Gazette (Janesville, Wisconsin), 10 Feb 1858, p. 2.

     “Old Settlers’ Meeting,” Watertown News (Watertown, Wisconsin), 26 Feb 1872, p. 3. 

     “Obituary - Dr. Lucius I. Barber,” Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut), 20 Feb 1889, p. 4. 

Other

     “Amherst Academy,” Digital Amherst, https://www.digitalamherst.org/exhibits/show/teaching/amherst-academy

     Barber, Lucius I. and Amos A. Phelps. Letter from Lucius Israel Barber, Simsbury to Amos Augustus Phelps, May 28, 1827. Retrieved from https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/m900pz41q

     Hodgman, Matthew R. “Survive and Persist: Amherst and Classical College Development During the Age of American College Proliferation,” Journal of Studies in Education, Vol. 3 No. 4 (Nov. 2013), pp. 136-149. 

     Montague, William Lewis and Edward Payson Crowell. Biographical Record of the Alumni of Amherst College During Its First Half Century, 1821-1871, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1881.

     Petke, Stephen. “A Chronological Survey of the Gravestones Made By Calvin Barber of Simsbury,” Markers X - Journal of the Association of Gravestone Studies, 1993.

Copyright Andrea Auclair © 2023