BARBER: From Dorchester, MA to Vermont to Ashtabula, OH

The Ancestry of the New England Bogdonoffs:
Barber, Cooley, Devoe, Dick, Hill, Johannson, Peterson

BARBER: From Massachusetts to Vermont to Ohio

The most recent BARBER in our line is Irene (or Firene) Joanna BARBER. We believe that's her to the right. She was born 30 Dec 1844 in Saxtons River, VT. She lived 82 years and died in Oberlin, OH in 1927. She married the retail merchant, Mathew Grey DICK, who had been living in Ashtabula since about 1834. They raised six children in Ashtabula; our ancestor is their son William Amzi Dick, Sr. (1866-1938).

 
Irene was the second of three children born to Amzi Doolittle Barber and Nancy Irene Bailey. Amzi was a congregational clergyman who taught for awhile in and around Saxtons River and Townshend, VT, before leaving New England with his wife and children and heading west to Ashtabula, OH about 1854. Amzi lived to be 91; he died in 1901 in Oberlin, OH. We believe (but have not yet confirmed) that that's him to the right. He and Nancy had three children:
  • Amzi Lorenzo Barber (1844-1909). After graduating from Oberlin College, he moved to Washington DC, where he was an early professor at Howard University. He then, through his successful father-in-law, got into real estate development, and created what was then a prestigious neighborhood in DC called "LeDroit Park." Amzi L. Barber is also called the "Asphalt King" because he invested at the right time in the raw materials that would pave DC's streets. He later purchased the Stanley Steamer Brothers company and attempted to make the "locomobile" a household name; he lost his shirt. He had four children, one of whom has living descendants, one of whom I have corresponded with.
  • Firene Joanna Barber (1844-1927) m. Mathew Gray Dick (1833-1913). See above.
  • Emma E. Barber (1847-?) m. abt. 1890 John Maitland (1847-abt. 1905). No issue.

Amzi was the third of seven children of Calvin BARBER (1785-1829) and Polly Brooks HALL (1788-1852). Calvin came from an interesting family in interesting times with a controversial story (PDF) of religion, love and lust.

Thomas Barber's line into the past may have been less controversial, but still interesting. The Barber emigrator was John Barber of Dorchester, England who settled in Dorchester, MA; he and several of his descendants were tailors or "bodice makers"; they were also carpenters and farmers.

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