BIO: WAITMAN BARBE, Monongalia County

Submitted by Nancy Taylor

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
pg. 433


    WAITMAN BARBE. Former students and graduates of the University of West
Virginia as long ago as a quarter of a century will recall with special 
gratitude their
influential associations with the professor of English, Waitman Barbe. 
Waitman Barbe is
one of West Virginia's distinguished authors and educators, and has been 
officially
identified with the State University since 1895.
    The family has been in America for a number of generations, but the 
original seat was
in the neighborhood of St. Remy, a few miles distant from the old fort St. 
Barbe in
Lorraine, France.  The grandfather of Waitman Barbe was Henry Barbe, who 
lived in the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, but subsequently removed to Monongalia County 
and
bought several hundred acres lying on the west side of Monongahela River in 
Grant
District. He lived there the rest of his life, and he and his wife were 
buried on the Barbe
burial ground, not far from Union Church.
    John Barbe, father of Waitman, was born in Shenandoah County, Virginia, 
in 1824,
and as a youth when his parents moved to Monongalia County.  He continued the
vocation to which he had been reared, farming, but late in life moved to 
Parkersburg, West
Virginia, where he died in 1905, at the age of eighty-one.  His wife, who 
died six months
later, just at the same age, was Margaret Esther Robinson, who was born in 
what is now
West Virginia in 1824, daughter of James Robinson, who was of English 
descent.  John
and Margaret Barbe had been married for nearly sixty years and for the same 
length of
time had been member of the Presbyterian Church.  Of their family of two sons 
and four
daughters Waitman Barbe is the youngest.
    Waitman Barbe was born in Grant District of Monongalia County November 19,
1864.  The environment of the farm stimulated rather than hindered his 
aspirations for
scholarship.  He attended country schools, the preparatory school of the 
State University,
an in 1884 graduated A. B. from West Virginia University.  He received his 
Master of
Arts degree in 1887 and his Master of Science in 1897, and during 1900-01 was 
a
graduate student in Harvard University in England during 1908-09.  Denison 
University of
Ohio conferred upon him the degree of Litt. D. in 1904.
    After leaving Doctor Barbe took up newspaper work, and from 1889 to 1895 
was city
editor or managing editor of the Daily State Journal of Parkersburg.  In 1895 
he returned
to his alma mater as assistant to the president and associated professor of 
English.  These
duties he performed until 1910, and since that year he has held the chair of 
English and is
also director of the summer school of the University.  From 1904 to 1921 he 
was editor of
the West Virginia School Journal.
    Doctor Barbe is a member of the national scholarship fraternity Phi Beta 
Kappa, the
social fraternity Beta Theta Pi, is a member of the American Association of 
University
Professors, the Harvard Graduate Club, was president of the West Virginia 
State Normal
schools from 1895 to 1902.  He is a member of the official board of the 
Methodist
Episcopal Church.   
    Outside of the great body of former students who have derived inspiration 
and
instruction from him Doctor Barbe is known in the world of letters through 
his authorship
of "Ashes and Incense," poems, published in 1891; "In the Virginias,", a 
volume of stories
published in 1896; "Going to College," 1899; "The Study of Poetry," 1905; 
"Famous
Poems Explained" 1909; and "Great Poems Interpreted," 1913.  The last two 
works are
very widely used as text books in schools and colleges of America, and they 
are also found
in a number of universities and public libraries in Europe.
    June 6, 1894, Doctor Barbe married Miss Clara Louise Gould, a native of
Parkersburg, daughter of  S. L. and Amanda (Worley) Gould.  Her father was 
born at the
Village of Caldwell, a suburb of Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, 
distinguished as the
birth place of former president Grover Cleveland, and her mother was a native 
of New
Lexington, Ohio.  After taking up his residence in West Virginia S. L. Gould 
established,
with his three brothers some forty years ago, the Parkersburg Mill Company, 
and was
associated with its management and operations for many years.