Los Angeles-Tehama-Solano County CA Archives Biographies.....Barrows, Henry Dwight 1825 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com December 13, 2005, 12:19 am Author: Luther A. Ingersoll (1908) HENRY DWIGHT BARROWS was born in Mansfield, Conn., February 23rd, 1825, a son of Joshua Palmer and Polly (Bingham) Barrows. His paternal grandparents, Joshua and Anna (Turner) Barrows, were, like his parents, natives of Mansfield. The Barrows family came to America from England and settled at Plymouth, Mass. Thence, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, two brothers moved to Mansfield, Conn., where eventually their name became more numerous than any other family name in town. In 1845 the subject of this sketch counted more than thirty families of the name in that place. The maternal grandfather of Mr. Barrows, Oliver Bingham, was known and venerated as "Uncle Oliver Bingham, the miller of Mansfield Hollow." He is remembered by his grandson as a large, well-proportioned man, resembling in appearance the pictures of George Washington. He had a brother, a miller on the Willimantic River, known widely as "Uncle Roger Bingham, of the old town of Windham." Joshua Palmer Barrows was born in 1794 and died in Mansfield in 1887; his wife was born in 1790 and died in 1864. They had three children, viz.: Mrs. Franklin S. Hovey, who died at Beverly, N. J., in 1890; Henry D. and James A., who for many years have been residents of Los Angeles. The early years of the subject of this sketch were spent on a farm. He received his education, first, in the public school, and later in the high school at South Coventry, Conn. Afterward he spent several terms in the academy at Ellington, Conn. Commencing when he was seventeen, he taught school for four winters. During this period he devoted considerable time to music, joining the local band, of which he became the leader, and taking lessons on the organ under a skillful English teacher in Hartford. In the village where Mr. Barrows was reared (South Mansfield, or Mansfield. Center as it was known) books were scarce, but he read all he could get. "Dick's Christian Philosopher" delighted him, and he still regards it as one of the best works extant to widen one's ideas of the world around him. His first business experience was clerking in New York in 1849. The next year he went to Boston, where, as entry clerk and then as bookkeeper, he worked in the large dry goods jobbing house of J. W. Blodgett & Co. for over two years, acquiring a business experience that was very valuable to him in after years. He greatly enjoyed the superior advantages in the way of books, lectures, music, etc., which a great city affords over a country town. He also heard with delight the early operas of Verdi, as well as those of Donizetti, Bellini, etc., as presented by Benedetti, Truffi, and other artists of that period, under the leadership of Max Maretzic. April 26th, 1852, Mr. Barrows sailed from New York on the steamer Illinois for California. The passage of the isthmus at that time was full of hardships, the connecting steamer on this side was the Golden Gate. Soon after arrival in San Francisco, Mr. Barrows went to the northern mines, going as far as Shasta; but, as the dry season had set in, he returned down the valley, working at haying at $100 a month on Thomas Creek, near Tehama. He reached San Francisco, July 31st, full of chills and fever, which the cold, harsh summer climate of that city, in contrast with the extreme heat of the Sacremento valley, only aggravated. He then went to San Jose, where he raised a crop of wheat and barley. At that time (1852-53) flour was very high, retailing at twenty-five cents a pound. In the fall of 1853 Mr. Barrows went to the southern mines, working at placer gold mining near Jamestown. Later he obtained an engagement as teacher of music in the Collegiate Institute in Benicia, remaining there until October, 1854, when the late William Wolfskill, the pioneer, engaged him to teach a private school in his family at Los Angeles, from December, 1854, until the latter part of 1858. Among his pupils, besides the sons and daughters of Mr. Wolfskill, were John and Joseph C. Wolfskill, sons of his brother, Mathew; William R. and Robert Rowland; the children of Lemuel Carpenter, J. E. Pleasants, etc. In 1859-60 he cultivated a vineyard on the east side of the river. He was appointed United States Marshall for the southern district of California by President Lincoln in 1861, holding the office four years. In 1864 he engaged in the mercantile business, in which he continued about fifteen years. Mr. Barrows was married November 14th, 1860, to Juanita Wolfskill, who was born November 14th, 1841, and died January 31st, 1863, leaving a daughter, Alice Wolfskill Barrows, who was born July 16th, 1862, and who became the wife of Henry Guenther Weyse, October 2nd, 1888. Mrs. Juanita Barrows was a daughter of William and Magdalena (Lugo) Wolfskill. Mr. Wolfskill was born in Kentucky in 1798, of German and Irish parentage, and was one of the very earliest American pioneers of Los Angeles, having arrived here in February, 1831. He died in this city October 3rd, 1866. His wife was born in Santa Barbara, California, the daughter of Jose Ygnacio Lugo and Dona Rafaela Romero de Lugo, Don Jose Ygnacio Lugo being a brother of Antonio Maria Lugo and of Dona Maria Antonia Lugo de Vallejo, who was the wife of Sergeant Vallejo and the mother of General M. G. Vallejo. Mr. and Mrs. Wolfskill were married at Santa Barbara in January, 1841; she died July 6th, 1862. There were born to them six children, viz.: Juanita Francisca, born in 1843 and became the wife of Charles J. Shepherd; Joseph W., born in 1844, married Elena Pedrorena; Magdalena, born in 1846, married Frank Sabichi; Lewis, born in 1848, married Louisa Dalton, daughter of Henry Dalton, the pioneer; and Rafaelita, who died in childhood. August 14th, 1864, Mr. Barrows married Mary Alice Workman, daughter of John D. Woodworth, and the widow of Thomas H. Workman, who was killed by the explosion of the steamer Ada Hancock in the bay of San Pedro April 23rd, 1863. She was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and died in Los Angeles March 9th, 1868, leaving two daughters: Ada Frances, who was born May 21st, 1865, and was married October 25th, 1890, to Rudolph G. Weyse (by whom she has three children); and Mary Washington, who was born February 22nd, 1868, and died in infancy. The present wife of Mr. Barrows was Bessie A. Greene, a native of Utica, N. Y. They were married November 28, 1868, and have one son, Harry Prosper Barrows; the latter born December 14th, 1869, and married August 19th, 1893, to Bessie D. Bell, a native of Michigan. They have three children. Until the formation of the Republican party Mr. Barrows was a Whig. He voted for Fremont in 1856, and has voted for every Republican candidate for president since till 1900, when he voted for William J. Bryan. He believes that that great party, in its earlier years, made a glorious record as a champion of the rights of man and of constitutional liberty. But he has found occasion, in common with many other original and sincere Republicans, to lament the departure of the party from its earlier simplicity and singleness of purpose in behalf .of universal freedom, being dedicated wholly, as it was, "to the happiness of free and equal men." For many years prior to the '80s he took an active part in public education. For much of the time during fifteen years he served as a member of the school board of this city. In 1867 he was elected city superintendent, and in 1868, county superintendent. He has written much on many subjects for the local press, and especially on financial questions, including resumption of specie payment, bimetallism, etc. He contributed one of the thirty-nine essays to the competitive contest invited in 1889 by M. Henri Cernuschi on International Bimetallism. He also wrote philosophical essay, in 1904, entitled: "Cosmos or Chaos? Theism or Atheism?" From 1856, for nearly ten years he was the regular paid Los Angeles correspondent of the San Francisco Bulletin, then one of the most influential newspapers of the Pacific Coast. Mr. Barrows has administered a number of large estates, including those of William Wolfskill, Captain Alexander Bell, Thomas C. Rhodes, and-others. He was appointed by the United States district court one of the commissioners to run the boundary line between the Providencia Rancho and that of the ex-Mission of San Fernando. Also, by appointment of the superior court, he was one of the commissioners who partitioned the San Pedro Rancho, which contained about twenty-five thousand acres. In 1868 he was president of the Historical Society of Southern California, of which he was one of the founders, and to the records of which he has contributed many valuable papers of reminiscences. He is also one of the charter members of founders of the Society of Los Angeles Pioneers. He wrote about one hundred sketches of early pioneers of Los Angeles, most of whom he knew personally, for the Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, issued in 1889 by the Lewis Publishing Co., of Chicago. He also wrote the text of the Illustrated History of Central California, published by the same company in 1893. Copies of both of these works may be found in the Los Angeles Public Library. Mr. Barrows has a strong conviction that every man and every woman should be a fully developed citizen; and that while all men and women should be guaranteed their natural equal rights and equal privileges in order that they may be enabled as nearly as may be, to fight the battle of life on an equal footing so far, at least, as the state can guarantee such natural rights and privileges to all its citizens. He holds that every citizen also owes manifold obligations to the state and to the community in which he lives—obligations which, though they cannot be legally enforced, he is, morally at least, not entitled to shirk. "Who," says Mr. Barrows, "can imagine the beauty of that state in which every person, however humble his lot, enjoys, not only theoretically, but practically, all the natural rights and privileges that every other person enjoys, and in which at the same time every person voluntarily and' freely renders, proportionately to his ability and opportunity, to the state and to the community, all the varied obligations pertaining to his personal and particular sphere that the best citizens perform. There are myriad ways of doing good in the world open to every person, and there are myriad obligations which every person owes the community which, if every person freely and faithfully performed according to his or her several abilities, this world would speedily become what it was intended to be, an earthly paradise." Loyalty to these principles and loyalty to the moral government of the universe and to the Great Being who upholds and rules that universe, Mr. Barrows adds, constitute his creed, his religion. In his opinion they are broad enough and true enough to serve as the basis of a universal religion, of a creed which all men can subscribe to, and live by, and, die by! Additional Comments: Extracted from: Ingersoll's century history, Santa Monica Bay cities: prefaced with a brief history of the state of California, a condensed history of Los Angeles County, 1542 to 1908: supplemented with an encyclopedia of local biography and embellished with views of historic landmarks and portraits of representative people. Los Angeles: Luther A. Ingersoll (1908) File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/losangeles/bios/barrows169bs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/cafiles/ File size: 12.0 Kb