Job Barnard, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of Job Barnard
JOB BARNARD
BARNARD, JOB. Justice Barnard, a prominent member of the legal fraternity, spent his boyhood in work on his father's farm in Jackson township, Porter county, Indiana, where he was born on the eighth of June, 1844, the son of William and Sally (Williams) Barnard. His father was a member of the Society of Friends, a man kind and just in character; and his mother exerted a strong influence alike on the boy's intellectual and moral development. Among his ancestry were two men who served as chief magistrates of Nantucket, namely, Thomas Macy and Tristram Coffin; while others were legislators in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Mr. Barnard early developed a fondness for reading and a decided inclination toward the observation of nature and the study of science. He made the fields and the woods his favorite haunts as a boy, while he was obtaining an education (not without difficulty) in the country schools and at Valparaiso college. He subsequently took a professional course in the law at Michigan university, and was graduated LL.B. in 1867. On May 1, 1867, he formed a partnership with Elisha C. Field, Esquire, at Crown Point, Indiana, where the firm of Field and Barnard built up a good practice, and during the time of his residence there, he filled several local offices. He had seen three years' service in the Civil war, as a private in Company K of the 73d Indiana infantry, from which he was mustered out as first sergeant, July 1, 1865.
Mr. Barnard's knowledge, judgment and ability in the law, soon won him more than a local reputation. From 1873 to 1876 he served as assistant clerk of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, which position he resigned on July 1, 1876, and entered again into the active practice of his profession in said district, as a member of the firm of Edwards and Barnard, in which he continued until October 1, 1899, when President McKinley appointed him as associate justice in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, a position which he still ably fills. Justice Barnard has been all his life a lover of nature, finding his chief recreation in country walks and in the study of birds and wild flowers.
His intellectual interests have been professional, chiefly in the field of the law. He is a member of the New church (Swedenborgian) and is president of the Washington Society of that church, and vice-president of its general convention in the United States. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the Cosmos club and University club of Washington, District of Columbia. He married Florence A. Putnam, daughter of Judge Worthy Putnam and Nancy (Sinclair) Putnam, at Berrien Springs, Michigan, on September 25, 1867; and they had four sons, three of whom are living (1905), and in business in Washington city.
Among the cases of general interest in which Justice Barnard has filed opinions during his service on the bench are those of Manning v. C. & P. Tel. Co., in which he held the act of Congress of June 30, 1898, regulating telephone rates in the District of Columbia, unconstitutional; and the case of Faul v. French, construing the will of Sophia Rhodes, who with her son perished at sea on the Steamer Elbe, January 30, 1895. These cases went to the Supreme Court of the United States and are reported in 186 U. S. 238, and 187 U. S. 401.
Source: Gates, Merrill E. 1905. Men of Mark in America: Ideals of American Life Told in Biographies of Eminent Living Americans. Volume I. Washington, DC: Men of Mark Publishing Company. 422 p.
Page(s) in Source: 126-127
This biography has been transcribed exactly as it was originally published in the source. Please note that we do not provide photocopies or digital scans of biographies appearing on this website.
Biography transcribed by Steven R. Shook