Biographical Sketch (1923):34, p. 667. "Frederick A. P. Barnard, D. D., LL. D., then a professor in the University of Alabama and later president of the University of Mississippi, and after the Civil War for many years president of Columbia University, New York City."

Biographical Sketch (1939):1326 "Frederick was born at Sheffield, Massachusetts, on May 5, 1809. His education was somewhat incidental till he attended Saratoga Academy while living with his mother's father at Saratoga Springs. After further schooling at Stockbridge he entered Yale College, 1824, and was graduated in 1828, standing second in the honor list.

After two years of teaching at Hartford, Frederick was called to Yale College as tutor. At that time each sub-senior class was divided into groups each of which recited all lessons to one tutor. Barnard inaugurated the reform of having tutors for each speciality. His was mathematics.

Growing deafness led him to accept a tutorship (May 1831) at a Hartford school for deaf mutes and a year later at the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. While at the latter institution he published an Analytical Grammar (1836) intended for the deaf, and prepared a paper on the aurora. In 1837 he was elected professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of Alabama, and continued there for seventeen years, the last six as professor of chemistry. In 1854 he was called to the chair of astronomy and mathematics at the University of Mississippi at Oxford. Two years later he was elected to the office of President, later changed to Chancellor. At Alabama he built and furnished a small astronomical observatory and suspended a Foucault pendulum from a dome by a ninety-foot piano wire. He invented stereoscopic photography. He took up journalism, sometimes writing political editorials for the two newspapers of opposed principles, and on occasion refuting his own editorials. He served as a commissioner to relocate the boundary between Florida and Alabama. He took a leading part in discussions as to university policy. In 1854 he received orders in the Episcopal church.

At Oxford, Barnard built up a strong institution, secured the erection of astronomical and magnet observatories and ordered a nineteen-inch lens from Clark of Cambridge; but as this was not completed before the Civil War was declared it was never delivered to the University of Mississippi, but to the Dearborn Observatory at Chicago.

In 1860 Barnard accepted an invitation of A. D. Bache to accompany a total eclipse expedition to Labrador. He returned to Newport, R. I., to find that he had been elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. On account of the war the next meeting was not held until 1866, so that Barnard holds the record for length of office of president of the Association.

Barnard was a northerner, though a slave holder, caught in the South at the outbreak of secession, of which he disapproved. Almost all the students entered military service and he resigned his office as Chancellor. The trustees of the University begged him to withdraw his resignation, which he did conditional upon the reopening of the University in the autumn. Such reopening did not take place so Barnard left with the good will of the trustees and a commission to report to them on the military schools in South Carolina and Virginia. He made the report in person. President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy personally urged him to stay in the South as he was needed to direct the work of obtaining sulphur from the mines of western Tennessee, but he declined and went with his wife to live at Norfolk, Virginia, until that city was captured by Federal troops in May, 1862.

Coming to Washington he was given direction of the map and chart department of the coast Survey under A. D. Bache. This included the preparation and publication of war maps. While thus engaged he published his famous "Letter to the President of the United States by a Refugee,' which denounced slavery, the 'giant conspiracy' of southern leaders, and especially the work of northern Copperheads as the greatest danger faced by the Republic. Shortly after this letter appeared Barnard was elected tenth President of Columbia College, in 1864, at the age of fifty-five."

1809 Birth:2342, p. 3. "The town of Sheffield lies among the Berkshire hills in southwestern Massachusetts, about twelve miles above the Connecticut line, and fifteen miles below Great Barrington. . . . Here, on May 5, 1809, two months after Thomas Jefferson relinquished the White House to James Madison, was born Frederick Augustus Barnard, the second child and first son of a young attorney of the town, Robert F. Barnard, and his wife, Augusta. He was named for his mother's brother, Frederick Augustus Porter, who had been killed the previous year at Niagara."

1824-1828 Yale University:2344 "At fifteen he was ready for Yale, where he entered in 1824, easily winning his way to the head of his class in mathematics and the exact sciences. In 1828 he graduated second in his class, and began to teach in the Hartford Grammar School."

1830 U.S. Census: F. A. P. Barnard, age 21, not yet located. His parents, Robert2363 and Augusta Barnard, were enumerated in Sheffield, Berkshire, Massachusetts as a male 40 to 50, two females 20 to 30, and one female 40 to 50. Frederick was not in the household. Examined census records for other Frederick Barnard's in East Windsor Township, Hartford County, Connecticut; Laurens Township, Otsego County, New York; Malone Township, Franklin County, New York; and Poughkeepsie Township, Dutchess County, New York to no avail.

1838 University of Alabama:2342, p. 78. "President Basil Manly of the University of Alabama scribbled in his diary on April 26, 1838: 'This morning at 20 minutes before 11 o'clock arrived Prof. F. A. P. Barnard. He had sailed from New York on the 24th of March, via Mobile'. . . . It was the sixteenth of April before the Edwina arrived and the weary, seasick young professor disembarked at Mobile and was greeted by his brother, Captain John Gross Barnard."

1838 University of Alabama:2343 In an autobiographical statement, Barnard says, "In the reorganization of the faculty of the University of Alabama, I was elected in 1837, professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, in that institution, a chair which I held till 1848, when I was transferred to the chair of chemistry and natural history."

1840 U.S. Census:2355
Tuscaloosa County, Alabama
Males 30-40 •• 1 << F. A. P. Barnard, age 31

1847-1848 Tuscaloosa Newspaper Editor:2342, p. 114, 116. Barnard "was the editor of (Tuscaloosa) Independent Monitor from October 1847 to July 1848, a period of some ten months." "Among the increased number of humorous stories, there was one in October of 1847 entitled 'Popping the Question.' It had coincidence in so far as the editor was at that time wooing Thomas Maxwell's cousin Margaret McMurray, visiting from Ohio. The wedding took place two months later, on December 30."

1847-1848 Tuscaloosa Newspaper Editor:2360 "For a number of years, also, Prof. Barnard was the unavowed editor of 'The Independent Monitor,' a weekly newspapaer, printed in Tuscaloosa; and, during this time, his pen was excessively prolific, and was employed on a wide range of subjects. As an editor, his writing were marked by a cheerful vein, mingled with a constant flow of humor; aned no oracle of the tripod has probably ever been more favorite in Alabama, than he. He contributed, also, occasionally, and for a time regularly, to the other weekly newspaper in Tuscaloosa, the 'Observer'."

1847 Marriage:2342, p. 121. "The year 1848 was a milestone in Frederick Barnard's life. Two days before the close of the previous year, the professor-editor and man about town married the 23-year-old Margaret McMurray. The bride would not have been considered blushingly young in that day of early marriages. The groom was well on in his thirty-eighth year and in the youthful eyes of his students was seen as "old FAP." Because Barnard's papers and effects were destroyed by the torches of Grant's soldiers when they invaded Mississippi, little written evidence is available today to reconstruct the affair. The marriage which lasted until Barnard's death, forty-one years later, appears to have been a constant match of devotion and happiness, though it was childless."

1847 Marriage:2362 "Married. In this city, on the 30th ult., by Rev. Dr. Manly, Prof. F. A. P. barnard, of the University of Alabama, to Miss Margaret McMurray."

1850 U.S. Census:2351
Tuscaloosa County, Alabama (District 1)
Enumerated 14 January 1851
F. A. Barnard •• 41, male, professor, born in Massachusetts
Margaret •• 27, female, born in England

1850 U.S. Census (identified above as cousin of Margaret McMurray):
Tuscaloosa County, Alabama (District 1, Town of Tuscaloosa)
9 October 1850
Thomas Maxwell2352 •• 35, male, merchant, real property value $8,000, born in England
Susan •• 30, female, born in Massachusetts
James R. •• 5, male, born in Alabama, in school within the year
John T. •• 4, male, born in Alabama
Thomas H. •• 1, male, born in Alabama
John Maxwell2353 •• 73, male, born in England
Mary •• 64, female, born in England
John •• 39, male, clerk, born in England
Robert •• 33, male, real estate value $500, born in England

1854 University of Mississippi:2342, p. 142. Barnard accepted offer of a position in mathematics at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi.

1860 U.S. Census:2354
Lafayette County, Mississippi (Paris Post Office)
Enumerated 6 October 1860
F. A. P. Barnard •• 51, male, chancellor of Univesity, personal estate value $3,500, born in Massachusetts
Margaret •• 37, female, born in England

1861 University of Mississippi:1327, p. 28. "When the tensions of the War flared up, it became very difficult for Barnard, a northerner, not only to function in his capacity as a scientist, but particularly in his role as chancellor. When in 1861 the students of the University of Mississippi organized the University Greys, Barnard's loyalty to the Union made it hard to remain. Jefferson Davis pleaded with him to stay and assist as investigator of the natural resources of the Confederate States, but Barnard left with his wife for Norfolk, Virginia. That city was then captured by Federal troops, and he moved to Washington where he directed the office that prepared war maps. When Barnard and his wife paid a visit to the White House, Abraham Lincoln interrupted a meeting to extend his greeting, telling Barnard that he was familiar with the deaf scientist's work. Lincoln introduced his guests without ceremony into the midst of the assembled Cabinet."

1862 Return to the North:2342, p. 187. As his authority, Chute cites the New York Times, 1 September 1864. "What happened during the next seven months is elusive in detail and may never be known. In a letter to the New York Times three years later, Barnard explained that he had gone to Richmond and had been refused a passport, but: 'About the first of March [1862] a passport was granted me for my wife; but on its presentation at Norfolk it was overruled under a general order of the Secretary of War. Suffering under an anxiety and distress of mind impossible to describe, I resolved to remain at Norfolk to abide the course of events. Not many days after I was notified by Gen. Hugar, commanding the post, that he was advised, in his instructions from Richmond, to send away from the city any persons who should visit there desiring a pass. To my earnest solicitation for indulgence, he yielded so far as to say that he would take no action in my case without cause. Thus I was permitted to remain on sufferance, until the evacuation of the town by the Confederate forces in May, 1862 . . ' Early on the morning of May 10, 1862, Frederick A. P. Barnard's first career came to an end, for on that day the federal troops marched into Norfolk. He had been loyal to the South in the Union, and one might say that actually he had never left the South — with the evacuation of Norfolk, the South left him."

1864 Columbia College:2344 "He was elected president of Columbia College in May 1864, and for twenty-five years following devoted all his mighty energies and resources to the development of that noble and wealthy institution."

1870 U.S. Census:2410
New York, New York (19th Ward, 9th Election District)
Enumerated 28 June 1870
Frederick A. P. Barnard •• 60, male, white, President of Columbia College, real estate value $20,000, personal property value $3,00, born in Connecticut, male over the age of 21
Margaret •• 46, female, white, keeping house, born in Connecticut [!]
Ellen Duggen •• 30, female, white, domestic servant, born in Ireland, father foreign born, mother foreign born
Mary Gilmore •• 20, female, white, domestic servant, born in Ireland, father foreign born, mother foreign born

1880 U.S. Census:2254
New York, New York
Enumerated 4 June 1880
63 East 49th Street
Frederick Barnard •• white, male, 70, husband, married, President of C. College, born in Connecticut, father born in Connecticut, mother born in Connecticut
Margaret •• white, female, 60, wife, married, keeping house, born in England, father born in England, mother born in England
Ellen Duggin •• white, female, 40, servant, single, cook, born in Ireland, father born in Ireland, mother born in Ireland
Delia Costello •• white, female, 25, servant, single, waitress, born in Ireland, father born in Ireland, mother born in Ireland

1888 Columbia College Resignation:1326 "In May, 1888, Barnard presented to the Trustees of Columbia College his resignation as President. He was now in his eightieth year and his health unstable. These facts led to the acceptance of his request. He lived less than a year longer, dying April 27, 1889. In his will, being childless, he left a fund to the College for 'encouraging scientific research.' Also a fund for the increase of the library."

1889 Close to Death:2563 President Barnard's Illness. Reports were current at Columbia College yesterday that President F. A. P. Barnard was critically ill. In the rumors, however, his danger was greatly exaggerated. The President had a relapse about a week ago, but his condition at present, according to his family physician, is greatly improved. Dr. Barnard's trouble is general debility, caused by extreme age. Next month he will be eighty years old, having been born at Sheffield, Mass., May 5, 1809. Because of his enfeebled constitution he resigned the Presidency of the college, the resignation to take effect on the appointment of his successor. But the resignation will probably not be accepted until he shall have completed his twenty-fifth year as the executive head of the institution. This term will end with the Commencement of this year.

1889 Death:2344 "To this institution (Barnard College for Women) he left his estate valued at $50,000. He died after brief illness on the 25th of April, 1889, and his remains were buried in his native village, Sheffield, Massachusetts."

1889 New York Times Obituary:2562 President Barnard Dean. Columbia College in Mourning Over Its Loss. A Man of Wonderful Energy, Great Perseverance, Varied Attainments, and Many Honors. President Barnard of Columbia College died at 4:15 o'clock yesterday afternoon. His death had been expected for some days, and the end was peaceful and painless. He had been sleeping in his chair, and just before death he awoke and nodded his head in answer to the nurse, who asked if he wanted some nourishment. Before this passed his lips the venerable scholar's sands of life had run out. Mrs. Barnard and the nurses were the only one who were present when he died. Prof. Henry Drisler, who is Acting President of Columbia College, was notified soon afterward. He will probably call a meeting of the Faculty to take commemorative action on Monday. He advised that the funeral be deferred until Thursday owning to the excitement attending the centennial celebration, but nothing definite on this point has been arranged. The college will remain closed until next Thursday.

Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard, S. T. D., LL. D., L. H. D., D. C. L., lived a long and eventful life. He was born Mary 5, 1809, at Sheffield, Berkshire County, Mass. His ancestors on his father's side, Francis Barnard of Conventry, Warwickshire, England, settled in Dorchester, Mass., in 1636. John Porter, also of Warwickshire, from whom he was descended on his mother's side, emigrated to the Bay State in 1628. His early education was received from his mother. At the age of nine he entered school at Saratoga Springs, where his grandfather resided. His spare moments were occupied in learning the printing art, and he could have gained a livelihood at the "case" if fortune had made it necessary. From there the lad completed his preparation for college at Stockbridge, Mass. While at the latter place his grandfather, Gen. Peter B. Porter, then Secretary of War under President John Quincy Adams, appointed the younger brother, the late Gen. John Gross Barnard, who died in 1882, at the age of 67, to a cadetship at West Point. By a mistake Dr. Barnard's name was put in the papers of appointment. The error was, however, corrected. The late General went to West Point and Dr. Barnard entered Yale. In 1828 he graduated with high honors. He immediately began teaching in the Hartford Grammar School, and in 1830 became a tutor at Yale. He was so successful in this that it was proposed to divide the professional chair of mathematics as soon as possible, and make him Professor of Pure Mathematics. He was, however, compelled to decline because of his health. In 1831 he taught in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Hartford, and in 1832 in that of New York. His next educational position was as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the University of Alabama, at Tuscaloosa, from 1837 to 1848. He was then transferred to the Chair of Chemistry and Natural History at the same institution. This position he held until 1854, when he took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Dr. Barnard then went to the University of Mississippi, at Oxford, where he remained until the outbreak of the civil war. During his term of Southern residence Dr. Barnard made many addresses that showed his devotion to the Union cause. During the time of his professorship at Oxford, Miss., he had for a fellow-professor the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Davis offered his colleague a high position under the Confederate Government if he would renounce the Union. When Dr. Barnard refused to do so, Davis was so vexed that he would not grant his friend's request for a passport through the lines. He finally reached Washington, where he was connected with the United States Coast Survey and, by reason of his long residence in the South, proved very useful to the Union government.

Dr. Barnard then became an applicant for the Chair of Physics at Columbia College, which had been made vacant by the departure of Prof. McCulloch to side with the Confederacy. Instead of appointing him to the professorship the Trustees of the college elected him to the Presidency of the college, made vacant by the resignation of Dr. Charles King. From that time to his retirement from active duties last year President Barnard's energies have been directed to furthering the interests of the college in all directions. Just previous to his election as President of Columbia the Trustees had acquired their present site. Also about the time of his accession to the Presidency of the college the Trustees had established the School of Mines. Through the executive ability of the new President, combined with the persevering energies of the professors of the new department, the school now stands in the front rank of scientific schools of the country.

Although he always urged an increase in scientific studies, he did not allow the scientific department to absorb his entire attention; all the schools were symmetrically developed. The college grew wonderfully during his regime. From being in the second or third rank of colleges, it reached during his last year of active service the highest enrollment of any college in the country.

In addition to his college duties President Barnard has done active service in many fields. In 1846 Gov. Martin of Alabama appointed him astronomer to a commission organized by determine the boundary between that State and Florida. The Legislatures of both States adopted his report as a basis for the settlement of all disputes between the two States. In 1860 he was in an astronomical expedition sent to Cape Chudleigh, Labrador, by the United States Coast Survey to witness the total eclipse of the sun. While he was away the American Association for the Advancement of Science elected him its President, which position he held until the Summer of 1866. During his stay at Washington as an assistant in the Coast Survey, he was engaged at first in continuing the reductions of Gilliss's observations of the stars of the southern hemisphere, and in 1863 had charge of their publication. He was one of the original corporators of the National Academy of Sciences, established by Congress in 1863, the Chairman of its physical section 1870-72, and its Foreign Secretary 1874-80. In 1865, after he had become Columbia's chief executive, he was elected President of the Board of Experts of the American Bureau of Mines. Congress, in December 1866, appointed him one of the Commissioners to the Paris Exposition of 1867. On his return he made an elaborate report on "Machinery Processes and Products of the Industrial Arts and Apparatus of the Exact Sciences," which Congress ordered printed. At the Centennial Exposition in 1876 at Philadelphia he was one of the judges on instruments of precision, and in 1878 was appointed Assistant Commissioner General to the exposition of that year at Paris, after which he had conferred upon him by the French Ministry the cross of the Legion of Honor.

Among the honorary degrees he received from various colleges were the degree of Doctor of Laws from Jefferson College, Miss., in 1855 and again from Yale in 1859; the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology from the University of Mississippi in 1861, and that of L. H. D. in 1872 from the Regents of the University of the State of New York.

Dr. Barnard, besides membership in many other literary and scientific associations, was a member of the American Philosophical Society, an associate member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a corresponding member of the Royal Society of Liege, Belgium, and at one time President of the American Institute and the American Microscopical Society. His writings covered a wide range of subjects. His first venture was an arithmetic in 1830. This was followed in a few years by an "Analytic Grammar, with Symbolic Illustrations," which has been in use of years in the principal institutions for the deaf and dumb. He contributed to various periodicals from 1837 on treating questions of astronomy, engineering, photography, electricity, metrology, physics, mathematics, and hygiene. He was editor in chief, with Prof. A. Guyot as associate, of "Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia," published in 1873, in Field's "Outlines of an International Code," Dr. Barnard wrote the chapters on money, weights and measures, longitude and time, and sea signals. His literary ability, while not given full ply by reason of his many other fields of activity, received great attention from others. J. G. Whittier, who was for many years a friend of Dr. Barnard, once wrote in a letter to him: "I always felt that even in the matters of literature and poetry thee had far greater chances for distinction than myself." Of the many-sided character of Columbia's late President, the Popular Science Monthly once said: "Among the promoters of science and liberal culture in our time, few men have labored more efficiently and successfully than the present versatile and accomplished President of Columbia College."

1889 Will:2481 "A Barnard Medal. One of the Provisions of the Will of Columbia's late President. By the will of President F.A.P. Barnard of Columbia College, by which, as already told in The Times, the college receives the whole estate after the death of Mrs. Barnard, it is provided that out of the estate, after it comes to the college, $10,000 shall be taken for the foundation of a Fellowship to be known as the Barnard Fellowship for Encouraging Scientific Research. The income of this amount is to be devoted to the support of some Alumnus of the School of Mines or Arts who may be recommended to the Trustees by joint vote of the Faculties.

The remainder of the estate is to be taken to form a fund to be known as the Barnard Fund for the Increase of the Library. Out of the income such books as may be most needed are to be bought by the librarian. the books are to pertain to physical or astronomical science.

It is also provided that the Trustees shall have a medal struck off, not to cost less than $200, to be known as the Barnard Medal for Meritorious Service to Science. A copy of this medal is to be presented at the end of every five years to the person who shall have during that period made such discovery in physical or astronomical science, or such novel application of science to purposes beneficial to the human race, as shall in the judgment of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States be deemed the most worth of such honor. The medal is to bear the inscription, on the obverse side, "Magna est veritas," and on the reverse, "Deo optimo maximo, gloria in excelsis."

Should it be found that the estate as it is eventually received by the college is less than $50,000, the will requests the Trustees not to use the income until the principal reaches that amount. President Barnard's microscopical apparatus is to remain in his wife's possession during her life, and she is to have all the household effects, the works of arts, and all the books which she chooses to take. The college librarian is then to take what books he thinks would be of use in the library. Prof. John K. Rees is to have Presidents Barnard's gold cosmic time watch as a token of the giver's appreciation of his work in aid of meteorological reform."