Barrett, Edward

BARRETT, TOMLINSON

Posted By: Gary Norris (email)
Date: 1/3/2013 at 10:13:12

The History of Poweshiek County, Iowa
Des Moines: Union Hist. Co., 1880.

BARRETT, EDWARD E. - Deep River Twp - pg 710-11. Section 30, P.O. Tilton. His great-grandfather, Moses Barrett, was born in London, in 1719, was educated for the ministry, came to America and was ordained an Evangelist of the Puritan type, and married Mary Dow, of the family of Dows from whence sprang the famous Lorenzo Dow - she died of measles, October 6, 1813, at the age of eighty-seven. He was associated with David Brainard in Christianizing the Indians, and for that purpose took a trip to London to solicit funds from the British Government to aid in setting up free schools among them. His grandfather, Daniel Barrett, read the entire Bible before he was five years old - was in the service of his country under Gen. Washington at White Plains, and married, in August, 1782, Rebecca Bosworth, from whom sprang seven sons and six daughters, all of whom lived until they attained an average age of about seventy-two years. One of the sons, Elisha D., graduated from Williams College in the same class with the late American poet, Wm. Cullen Bryant, and is now ninety-one years old. His son, Lysander, the father of Edward, was born the 6th of November, 1800, and still lives, vigorous in body and intellect, and able to read without the use of spectacles. The subject of this sketch was born in Hampden county, near Westfield, Massachusetts, on the 14th of January, 1833; raised a farmer, and first attended the Academy of Glade Run, Pennsylvania, and when nineteen years old started to Kittanning Academy; taught public school when twenty; emigrated to Iowa in 1856, and sold tombstones in Keosauqua, Van Buren county, for two years. He then returned East and taught school in Pennsylvania until he married. He again taught school, in the intervals of his business as a farmer, both in Pennsylvania and Van Buren county, Iowa, until he moved to Montezuma, in 1864, where he lived for the next six years. In 1870 he bought and moved to his present farm home. Mr. Barrett married, in Indiana county, Pennsylvania, April 29, 1859, Miss Annie Tomlinson, of Granville, Ohio, who was born in Granville, November 21, 1840. He owns 120 acres of good farming land, and is free from debt.