People from the Barnes' Box Part I

Portraits of Rodney Barnes, Mrs. Rodney Barnes, and two children Emerson and Darwin were in the Barnes box of pictures. They were all labeled with narrow strips of paper with their names in the same script. I had no idea for their relationship (although tonight I did find him and his wife Roxanna Horton in my piles of paper).. I felt he may have been a brother to Monroe Barnes my wife Nancy's GG Grandfather. I suspect another unlabeled photo maybe Monroe and his wife Ann. I'll be posting the others along with a photo of Ann in another post.
Rodney Barnes


Roxanna(Horton) Barnes

Emerson Barnes


Darwin Barnes

Emerson Barnes
So not knowing who Rodney was, I e-mailed Mr. Alderman the Burlington Town Historian (an a distant Barnes cousin). He was kind enough to send the following info about Sherman Barnes . Last year he had told me that Sherman and Monroe families were "Universalists" and that Sherman built telescopes. I later found that Monroe lived in Meriden Ct. for a while and was a founder of the Universalist Church there. What Mr. Alderman sent appears to be from a history and gives a glimpse into life in the mid 1800's.

With many enjoyable things in the life of the village, not the least was the astronomical "observation given by Sherman Barnes with the aid of a telescope" of his own make. This later became the property of Yale college, Mr. Barnes replacing it with another still better. He was at all times interested and pleased when people came to his home, to show them what could best be seen at the time in the heavens. When the planets and stars or moon were showing at their best he would invite his company to meet on the school house lawn or street to study the skies. He was son of Joel of Wise, and lived west of Caleb N. Matthews. He married Luana Smith, daughter of Gideon. The children were Rodney, Cyrus, Banebridge, Juliette, Hannah, Monroe, Gideon and Amelia.

Mr. Barnes had a machine shop on the brook near His Home, the old house place of Gideon Smith his father-in-law, opposite and beyond was in the now almost deserted district of Falls brook and the "Nigger Bridge," Mr. Schriver lives northward from the bridge. Southwest from Norman Matthews lived Josiah Barnes, father of the twins Elias and Eliada Barnes and a younger brother, Austin. The house is a ruin and the sons gone.
I would say life in the "Barnes" home was interesting to say the least. At the bottom of this blog is a photo of the brook his and Monroe's shop was on.
I should make a photo of "Whigville" as it has changed little since Sherman held those sky viewings.