Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/270

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210
Mary Barlow Wilkins

not giving up the entire road to his royal highness. The command was promptly disregarded and the result was disastrous—the red-coat, horse, cutter and all going over into the snow. Courtesy prompted the American to set the Englishman on his way, which he accepted without further parley or demands. Soon after, another son, failing to salute an English officer, was summarily ordered to do so. The salute took the form of a blow which laid the officer low in the dust of the road. He was assisted to arise and told to give orders in future to members of his own command if he wished them to be obeyed. After these affairs, it was thought the better part of valor for that generation of Barlows to follow Daniel Boone into Kentucky.

William Henry Harris Barlow married Elizabeth Kimbrough, of Welsh descent. Their children were: Samuel Kimbrough, the subject of this sketch, William, James, Thomas Harris, John, Harrison, Elizabeth and Sarah. Many in this generation of Barlows were inventors and pioneers in many first efforts of frontier life and investigation. Thomas Harris Barlow was a noted gunsmith and manufactured not only many of the best Kentucky rifles and breech loading cannons, but was the inventor of a planitarium which was used in teaching astronomy in many of the universities and schools throughout the Atlantic coast. He also built the first locomotive west of the Alleghany mountains, which was demonstrated on a circular railroad with marked success. A replica of this steam locomotive was one of the principal features of a pageant held in Lexington, Kentucky, in June of this year (1925). William Barlow, another son of the Barlow-Kimbrough family, invented the "Billy Barlow" knife, the first that could be closed with a hinge. Two other sons were with General Jackson at New Orleans as master armorers. (For further details of their part in the War of 1812, see "Oregon Quarterly" of September, 1912). Milton Kirtley Barlow, a nephew of S. K. Barlow, was an