U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Barber, Timothy Lawrence (b. 1853) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Men of West Virginia, Volume II Biographical Publishing Company George Richmond, Pres.: C. R. Arnold, Sec'y and Treas. Chicago, Illinois, 1903 Pages 530-532 TIMOTHY LAWRENCE BARBER, A. M., M. D., a prominent physician and surgeon of Charleston, West Virginia, was born in Plymouth, Indiana, October 4, 1853. He is a son of Daniel and Ann (Hulverson) Barber, the former of English descent, the latter, a native of Norway. The Barber family is an old one and was founded in America by an ancestor who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1630, and was one of the first settlers at Windsor, Connecticut. He was prominent in the early Indian wars and many of the family were engaged in the Revolutionary War and held conspicuous positions in professional and military life. The grandfather of Dr. Barber was Timothy Barber, who settled at Syracuse, New York, when it was but a crossroads. Later he moved his family west and settled on the land where Chicago now stands, but finding it a marshy, unpromising field for farming, he removed back into the northern part of Indiana, and settled in Marshall County, where he remained some years and where his children continued to live. He went back to New York State, and not long after lost his life in an accident. Daniel Barber, the father of Dr. Barber, grew to manhood in Marshall County, Indiana, and became the owner of a moderate estate. He married a daughter of one of the sturdy Norwegian families that settled in the same county, and there reared a family of six children, one of whom, Levi, died there in infancy. Business misfortunes deprived him of all his belongings in Indiana, and he removed with his family of five children to Dodge County, Wisconsin, living at Mayville, Horicon and Beaver Dam (1864-67). Besides being a farmer in Indiana, he ran a flouring mill, which trade he followed in his Wisconsin homes. While residing in Wisconsin, his eldest daughter, Sophia, was married to William H. Roper, who removed with her to Emmetsburg, Iowa, where she died. With the rest of his family, Daniel Barber went to Petroleum Center, Pennsylvania, to join a brother, Levi Barber, who was engaged in refining oil. After a couple of years' stay there a disastrous oil fire destroyed the plant and killed his brother. He then took his family back to Plymouth, Indiana, where he lived till his death, in 1871, his wife surviving him but a year. The only schooling Dr. Barber had was that afforded in the public schools of the various localities in which he lived, until, upon the invitation of a relative at Marietta, Ohio, he was privileged to receive a college education at Marietta College, graduating there in 1877. For the subsequent two or three years, he taught school and tutored boys for college, using his spare time in the study of medicine. By dint of perseverance and good fortune, he was enabled to secure a scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania upon competitive examination, thus gaining all he advantages of this foremost medical school of America, with no cost but his living expenses. He graduated in medicine there in 1882, securing the degree of M. D. and about the same time also that of A. M. from his alma mater. Marietta College. Dr. Barber settled in Charleston, West Virginia, where from a modest beginning he has risen to be one of the foremost physicians of the Capitol City, as well as of the large territory adjacent. He has been conspicuously identified with the professional organizations and advancements of his city, county and State, being a moving factor in the medical societies, — city, county, State and national. He is now the president and health officer of his city and county boards of health, as well as an organizer of the State Medical Association. He is a close student and devoted to his profession and is regarded as progressive yet conservative. In 1901 he traveled in Europe and visited many of the medical centers and enjoyed the advantages of study in their hospitals and clinics. Since his return he has been engaged in establishing a sanatorium for the private treatment of diseases with electricity, X-rays, massage and baths, having taken a special course at the Illinois School of Electrotherapeutics. To this branch of the healing art he expects to devote his future time and energy, to which, if he applies the same energy that characterizes him, the Capitol City will one day enjoy a sanatorium that will do it credit. In 1882 Dr. Barber married Sarah R. Couch, daughter of James H. Couch, a prominent lawyer of Mason County, West Virginia. She died one year later with her first babe. In 1885, he married Lucy Brown, a daughter of Judge James H. Brown, of Charleston, West Virginia, and sister of Hon. J. F. Brown, at present a prominent attorney of that city. Seven children have been born to this union — five boys and two girls — the oldest boy, James Brown Barber, having died in 1901, at the age of 15 years. The Doctor is an elder in the Kanawha Presbyterian Church, a prominent Sabbath-school worker, a member of the different Masonic organizations, one of the local U. S. pension examiners, examiner for a large number of prominent life insurance companies, surgeon to the K. & M. Railroad, in general politics an adherent of the Republican party, and yet regards the character of the local government as above any party that may aspire to run it. ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Kanawha County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/kanawha/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------