John Fiske Barnard

John F. Barnard, while serving as the Gen. Supt. of the Kansas City, St. Joseph & Council Bluffs Railroad, accommodated John Nelson Darby to Council Bluffs and San Francisco in July of 1875 on his final trip to the United States, as reported in the History of the Work of God in America by Philip Franklin Jensen (1897-1972).

Childhood

Findagrave.com has John Fiske Barnard born April 23, 1829 in Worcester, Massachusetts, lived in Council Bluffs, IA; Cincinatti, OH; died in Los Angeles, California, February 6, 1910, and buried in Hollywood at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, along with his second wife Julia Boswell (Keefer) Barnard (1840-1915) born in Waterloo, Ontario. His first wife was Gertrude Agnes (Harvey) Barnard of Bath, England;

John was the son of John (1803-1873 Worcester, MA) and Sarah Rice Bigelow Barnard (1800-1900 Worcester, MA), married in 1826; Five generations back was also John Barnard born in 1604 who emigrated from England in the “Elizabeth” in 1634 with his wife Phoebe, and is included in the “Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy: Volume One (1925) under J.F.’s eighth child Wilfred.

One of John's unnamed brothers was part of Sherbrooke Meeting Room, QC in 1851.

Education

John was educated in 1850 at Renssalaer Polytechnic School, in Troy, NY, the first year of its reorganization as a three-year school; He considered himself Episcopalian in 1851.

Occupation

As per his obit, John started his career with the railway industry with the Grand Trunk, and came to St. Joseph in 1870 as chief engineer of the Grand Island. He later joined the aforementioned KC-St.J-CB railway, and was promoted to GM. In 1884, he was made GM of both the Hannibal & St. Joseph, and the K.C. lines, which he served until 1888 when he became president of the Ohio & Mississippi railway, later part of the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O).

In 1895, he was appointed receiver of the Omaha & St. Louis railway, retiring in 1899 to St. Joseph. He relocated in 1907 to Los Angeles, joining his daughter who was wife of the general superintendent of the Pacific coast lines of the Santa Fe railway. According to The Railway Age: Vol. 11, he also served as president of the Atchison Union Depot Co. at St. Joseph, and director of others including the Hannibal Union Depot Co., the Kansas City Depot Co., etc.

PB

As previously mentioned, John moved to St. Joseph, Missouri in 1870, and he was correspondent for an assembly meeting in his home at the northeast corner of Edmond & 15th Sts., in St. Joseph, Missouri for certain from 1878-1880+, possibly as early as 1870-1875, and as late as 1888 when he relocated for work with the OH&MS, and returning to St. Joseph 1899-1907. See Kansas City Meeting Room, KCMO for more detail on his ministry in St. Joseph.

Family

John married Julia Boswell Keefer Barnard (b. 1840 Thorold, Niagara, ON - d. 1915 Los Angeles, CA), daughter of Peter Keefer (b. 1801 ON) & Jane Keefer (b. 1812 England). In 1851, Peter was the postmaster of Galt, ON.

Children:

• Anna "Annie" Mary Barnard Wells (b. 1855 N.H. - d. 1940 L.A. Co., CA). Husband (1883 @ St. Joseph, MO): John Wells (1856-1942), Berkeley, CA who was in 1871 PB in Guelph, ON.
• Helena Barnard (1858-1942) served as one of three cofounders and the first secretary of what is now known as the American Nurses Association, started in 1892, and has early roots with the John Hopkins School of Nursing. She also served as president of the CA State Nurses’ Assoc., and a member of the board of managers for the Children’s Hospital, founded in 1914 in Los Angeles.
• John Alfred Barnard (1861-1910) born in Grenville Province of Quebec, GM of the Ohio, Indiana & Western RR, as well as GM of Peoria & Eastern RR; Episcopalian; 1st wife: Louise Ingalls who was daughter of Melville Ingalls, president of the Cleveland, Cincinatti, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad; 2nd wife: Julia Fletcher. John lived in Coronado and Pasadena, CA. Three children: Hilda (1902), Julia (1904) and Agnes (1905). Due to a acrimonious custody dispute thru divorce, as each of the three children inherited $250k, Julia committed suicide in 1910.
• Gertrude Barnard (m. Arthur G. Wells, born in Guelph, ON, son of Arthur & Georgiana Wells, and served as general manager of the Santa Fe Railway); Gertrude founded and taught the Wellspring Bible Class at the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, IL, as well as serving as as president of the women’s missionary society, taught a bible class for young married women in Winnetka in the home of Henry Coleman Crowell, whose father was the founder of Quaker Oats, and president of the board of Moody Bible Institute (1902-1944).
  • Henry himself was an executive vice-president at Moody, and president of Missionary Equipment Service in Chicago. She also served with a social service agency known as Erie Chapel, Moody Bible Institute, and later was involved in outreach to Chinese girls in Los Angeles associated with Biola. She was also a member of the Executive Committee of the American Mission to Lepers.
• Wilhelmina Barnard (1862-1945) may have married a South African named Barend Andries Liebenberg (1855-1938), and served in missions in Louisvale, Gordonia, South Africa where she was buried.
• Robert Christie Barnard (1869-1942), m. 1897 Helen Cheney Nelson (1875-1955). Born in Montreal, Quebec. Studied 1890 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Engineer in RR including superintendent of Cleveland Akron & Columbus RR, and secretary of the Dayton Union RR. Helen served as a director of the prestigious Three Arts Club of Cincinatti. Robert was part of the Queen City Club, and Country Club in Cincinatti.
• Reginald Napier Barnard (1872-1893)
• Ethel Maitland Barnard Bushnell who married Col. George Ensign Bushnell, who graduated from Yale in 1876 and was a noted Army surgeon; George was also son of Congregational minister in Beloit, WI of the same name who grad Yale 1842, and grandson of Eli Whitney Bushnell, inventor of a mortise lock and the Blake stone-crushing machine. Eli was also a nephew of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin. In 1915, Col. Bushnell was in command at Fort Bayard, N.M.
• Harold Galt Barnard (1876-1886)
• Wilfred Keefer Barnard (1879-1936) born in St. Joseph, MO and died in Pasadena, CA. Wilfred was an engineering graduate of Yale in 1901, and spent several years in railroad work, including supervision of main line and terminal construction on the Los Angeles & Salt Lake R.R., and the Pacific Electric R.R. at Los Angeles. In 1913, he formed a partnership with Charles T. Leeds to form a consulting civil engineering firm Quinton, Code & Hill-Leeds & Barnard. His wife was Katherine Clark Barnard (1885-1969) born in Prescott, AZ and died in Los Angeles;
• Archer Fortescue Barnard (b. 1881 St. Joseph, MO) graduated in 1903 from Yale, served as an assistant engineer with Wilfred for Leeds & Barnard, in Los Angeles. Presbyterian.

Sources

• Ancestry.com
• The Railway Age, Vol. 11
• History of the Work of God in America, by Philip Franklin Jensen, 1950