BIO: Abel Barker, Wyoming Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, PA & NY

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by 
Judy Banja & Denise Phillips

Copyright 2007.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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Chaffee, Amasa Franklin. History of the Wyoming 
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
New York: Eaton & Mains, 1904, page 153.
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  BARKER, ABEL, died at his home in Wyoming, Pa., on September 24, 
1886, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.
  He was born in Kingston, Pa., and educated in the old Kingston 
Academy.  At twenty-five years of age he joined the Oneida Conference, 
and became a member of Wyoming Conference upon its organization.
  He had a brother, Thomas B., for many years a minister in the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, who with a few years before his death 
united with the Elm Park Church of Scranton, and whose orders were 
recognized by the Conference of 1896.
  During his pastorate at Honesdale he was so severely afflicted with 
minister's sore throat that he was compelled to cease work.  However, 
he so far recovered as to be able to do some work in subsequent years.
  "While living at Honesdale he invented a mine pump, the right of 
which he sold for a large sum.  He was also the patentee of several 
useful inventions.  During the latter years of his life he was employed 
as the special agent and overseer of train service on the Bloomsburg 
division of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroads."
  He was twice married, and left a wife, two sons, and two daughters to 
mourn his loss.
  He was buried in the Forty Fort Cemetery, where lie buried a number 
of Wyoming Conference men.
  His pastoral record is as follows:  1836, Canaan; 1837, Pittston; 
1838-39, Skinner's Eddy; 1840-41, Newfield; 1842, Candor; 1843-44, 
Binghamton; 1845-46, Honesdale; 1847-53, sy.; 1854, Presiding Elder 
Honesdale District; 1855, sy.; 1856-57, Carbondale; 1858-86, sd.