Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/200

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

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,