History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

goes back to the early years of New England's founding. Thomas Barber
was the English ancestor, who, under the patronage of Sir Richard Saltonstall, left England in I634, and on the ship Christian de Lo crossed
the Atlantic and in 1635 settled at or near Windsor, Connecticut. Thomas
Barber was twenty-one years of age at that time, was married at Windsor,
and it is one of the traditions of the family that his marriage was the
first in the Connecticut colony. The descendants of Thomas Barber have
ever since been prominent in New England both in peace and war. William C. Barber, one of the descendants, served on the staff of General
Washington, for a time during the Revolutionary war. In 1836, E. H.
Barber, father of Edward W., secured twelve hundred acres of rural land
in Eaton county, Michigan, and three years later, in 1839, brought his
family to a state, the greater part of whose territory was still in the wilderness. It was for the purpose of developing this large landed tract in
Eaton county, that the father moved to Michigan in I839. They made the
journey from the East to Detroit, which was then a small city of nine
thousand people, and thence journeyed inland over the rough trails to
their destination.
Edward W. Barber, who was eleven years old on arriving in Michigan,
grew up with limited schooling, and at Marshall, Michigan, while a young
man, he began to learn the printers' trade. His three years' apprenticeship was spent on the Marshall Expounder, and was finished in 1850. As
a journeyman he followed his trade in Detroit in a job office for several
years, later became an active newspaper man, and naturally took a hand in
politics as well as in journalism. He was the first city editor of the first
free-soil daily paper in Michigan, known as the Detroit Daily Democrat.
In I857 and again in 1859, Mr. Barber was assistant clerk of the Michigan
House of Representatives, and in I86I and I863 he served as clerk of
that body. During the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, and the fortieth sessions of the United States Congress, he was reading clerk in the House
of Representatives, at Washington.
His varied ability and services to his party brought him still further
promotions in public affairs. From I869 to I872, Mr. Barber held the
responsible post of supervisor of internal revenue for the district, which
included the states of Michigan and Wisconsin. In March, 1873, President Grant, after his second election, appointed Mr. Barber, third assistant postmaster general and during the next four years he had his home in
Washington, and was busy with the duties of that office. During the
presidential campaign of 1876 Mr. Barber was on the executive committee of the Republican Congressional campaign committee in Washington. From the beginning of the Republican party his affiliation to it
existed until I880, when on the tariff question he became, and has since
then been, an independent Democrat. In I860 he was secretary of the
State Republican Convention which met in Detroit, and which nominated
Austin Blair for governor of the state, and who became Michigan's war
governor.
Mr. Barber has had his home in Jackson since 1878, and since I880,
he has been editor of the Jackson Daily Patriot. The Patriot is one of
the oldest newspapers in Southern Michigan, having been founded in
1844, by no less an eminent character in the newspaper field than Wilbur
F. Story, subsequently of the Chicago Times. Mr. Barber has been twice
married, but both his wives are deceased and there are no children.
At the age of eighty-six Mr. Barber still retains his vigor and would
pass for a man twenty years his junior. Besides the responsibilities of his
favorite post as editor of the Daily Patriot, he has a long record of success in business affairs, and he is still active, keeping a firm hand on the
many interests which have come to him in his long career. He is presi