MONTGOMERY COUNTY OHIO BIO: BARNEY, Eliam E. (published 1882)
***********************************************************************
OHGENWEB NOTICE:  All distribution rights to this electronic data are
reserved by the submitter.  Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted
material will require the permission of the copyright owner.  The submitter 
has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently 
for free access.
***********************************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Tina Hursh
frog158@juno.com
July 22, 1999
***********************************************************************

From the 
The Ohio Biographies Project
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~usbios/Ohio/mnpg.html
a part of
The U.S. Biographies Project
http://members.tripod.com/~debmurray/usbios/usbiog.html


"The History of Montgomery County, Ohio" by W.H. Beers & Co.  1882


Eliam E. Barney, deceased, was born in Adams, Jefferson Co., N.Y., October 14, 
1807.  His parents were Benjamin Barney, a native of Guilford, Vt., and Nancy 
Potter of Conneticut.  His father was a warm and active friend to education, and
one of the principal movers in founding Union Academy, at Bellville, Jefferson
Co., N.Y., having contributed for this object very liberally, both time and
money.  For more than fifty years, this academy has been a vigorous and
prosperous institution of learning.  Both parents were earnest, active members 
of the Baptist Church, from early life till death.  Having received a 
common-school education and acquired some experience as a teacher in winter
schools, our subject was prepared for college at Lawville Academy, Lewis Co., 
N.Y., and at Union Academy, Bellville, in the same state.  He then entered the
sophomore class, at Union College, Scheneetady, from which he graduated in 1831.
After teaching for a brief period in a family boarding school at Sand Lake, 
N.Y., he became Principal of Lawville Academy, where he remained two years,
meeting with great success.  In the fall of 1833, he came to Ohio, and taught
for six months in Granville College (now Dennison University), filling the place
of Prof. Drury, who had been elected, but had not yet arrived.  In the spring
of 1834, he came to Dayton and was Principal of the Dayton Academy from 1834 to
1838.  The two succeeding years, he taught a private school for both sexes.  His
health failing, he relinquished teaching, and during four years engaged in
widely different pursuits.  His teaching from first to last was attended with 
great success, and the occupation being one for which he seemed peculiarly 
fitted, in it he attained a hight reputaion.  His education and the range of his
information were ample, and he possessed the rare faculty of communicating
knowledge to his pupils.  He seemed without difficulty to reach the 
understanding and compel a ready apprehension of all he sought to teach.  There
are but few of his former putpils who will not say that he was the best of all
their teachers.  His descipline was strict, but his kindness at the same time
so manifest that he secured alike their respect, affection and obedience.  In 
the summer of 1850, in company with Mr. E. Thresher, he started the Dayton Car
Works. Their capital was limited and the business was carried on upon a moderate 
scale and prudently, but successfully.  In 1854, Mr. C. Parker succeded Mr. 
Thresher in the firm, and from that time till 1864 the business, which had
greatly increased, was conducted under the firm name of Barney, Parker & Co.
Mr. Parker then sold out to Mr. Preserved Smith, the firm becoming Barney, Smith
& Co., and the business was thus continued until 1867, when a joint stock
company was formed under the name of "The Barney & Smith Manufacturing Company
of Dayton", of which Mr. Barney was the President until his death.  The
company furnishes all kinds of cars for the railroads of the North, East, South,
and West.  During nearly its entire history, Mr. Barney was the head of the 
establishment, and to him is due the great success of the enterprise.  He was
a man of great ability, bold but prudent, clear headed, far sighted, energetic, 
systematic, practical and thoroughtly familiar with the business in general
and in detail.  Some years before his death, Mr. Barney, realizing the fact that 
our forests are rapidly disappearing and the whole country becoming denuded of
its timber trees, and that the constant demand for timber would soon exhaust 
the present supply, and having his attention called to the valuable properties
of the "catalpa", a tree of quick growth and furnishing timber of the 
most enduring quality, began a collection of information respecting the tree,
and by correspondence, communications to the papers and the publication of
pamphlets, he awakended a very wide-spread interest in the subject.  He had
at his office various specimens of the catalpa wood, one of which was from a
post that stood in the ground for seventy-five years and which, with the 
exception of a very slight decay on the outside, was as perfect and sound as
when sunk in the earth.  He had, also, numerous letters from foreign countries
as well as all parts of the United States, making inquiries  respecting the
catalpa, commending him in the most flattering terms for the interest he had
taken in this important matter, and assuring him that his efforts in that 
connection could not fail to be crowned with the most valuable results, and be
appreciated by future generations.  If "he who causes two blades of grass to 
grow where but one grew before" is a benefactor to his race, in an equally 
important sense is this true of a man who was instrumental in arousing the 
attention of nuserymen and agriculturists in the liberal cultivation of this
most valuable timber tree, calculated, as it is, to furnish excellent lumber for
future use.  Mr. Barney was never an aspirant for public office.  He was, 
however, President of the Dayton Hydraulic Company from its organization, and 
was Vice President of the Second National Bank of Dayton, also a Director and the 
largest largest stockholder of the same.  He was likewise for many years 
prominently connected with the First Baptist Church of Dayton, and for some
twenty years a member of the Board of Trustees of Dennison University, at
Granville, Ohio (the Baptist college of the State), to which institution he
has given $50,000, the same being to endow two memorial Professorships.  He also
contributed very largely to various other enterprises connected with his
denomination.  On October 19, 1834, he maried Julia, daughter of Dudley Smith, 
of Galway, Saratoga Co., N.Y., and six children, of whom five are living, 
were the issue of this marriage.  Mr. Barney departed this life on the 17th of 
December, 1880, and was buried in the beautiful Wooland cemetery, with 
ceremonies befitting his rank in life.

  
Submitted by Tina Hursh <frog158@juno.com>