OBIT: John Campbell BARR, 1895, formerly of Huntingdon County, PA

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  Rev. J. C. Barr died at his home on Washington Avenue at 11 o'clock 
Saturday night last, from an infection of the kidneys, an affliction 
that first attacked him about eight years ago, and from which he 
frequently suffered long and severely.  He had been confined to his 
room and bed the past week.  In the spring of 1893 he was thrown from a 
buggy, breaking one of his legs at the thigh and otherwise injuring him 
very severely, which doubtless irritated his deep-seated kidney trouble 
and hastened death.
  John Campbell Barr was the second son of eleven children of Samuel 
and Sibella (Bell) Barr, and was born at the homestead in Little 
Valley, Mifflin county, Pa, January 4, 1824.  Born on a farm, he grew 
to physical maturity while helping to cultivate his father's crops in 
summer and acquiring his early education during the winter months in 
the common schools of the community.  His literary studies were pursued 
at Tuscarora Academy and at Jefferson college, Canonsburg, Pa.  He 
entered the junior class at Jefferson in September, 1848, and graduated 
from that institution in 1850.  He then left his native state and 
followed the occupation of teacher while he prosecuted his studies in 
theology, finally rounding out his course at the Cincinnati Theological 
Seminary, an institution that was shortly after removed to Danville, 
Ky.  He was licensed to preach by the Cincinnati Presbytery in the 
spring of 1853 after which he performed missionary work and taught in 
the western part of Ohio and in Indiana till the fall of 1855, when he 
was called to the pastorate of the Presbyterian church at Princeton, 
Ill., where he was ordained and installed by the Presbytery of Rock 
River.  Thus he had worked his way to the pinnacle of education 
required by the rigid discipline of the church to which he had decided 
to give his life work, by means secured by his own labor as his studies 
progressed.  Seemingly prophetic of his career up to this time, and 
largely so in the years that followed, the subject of an oration which 
he had delivered upon his graduation at Jefferson was "The Spirit's 
Wanderings."
  In the fall of 1857 Rev. Mr. Barr removed from Princeton to Malden, 
Ill., to take charge of a new field, in which he was instrumental soon 
after in organizing a church, of which he became the pastor.  He 
continued there seven years, during most of the time supplying another 
church which he was also instrumental in organizing at Arlington, Ill.  
In 1864 he was called to a church newly organized at Geneseo, Ill., 
where he continued seven years more, and in the fall of 1871 he was 
beckoned to return to the clime of his early life by a call from the 
Presbyterian church at Alexandria, Pa., a  pulpit just made vacant by 
Dr. S. M. Moore, who had accepted a call to the Tyrone church and who 
in October last had died in his home on Lincoln avenue in this place. 
Mr. Barr remained the faithful and beloved pastor of the Alexandria 
church till the fall of 1885, when he became the pastor of the 
Petersburg and Shavers Creek churches.  In the spring of 1887 he was 
called to the Monoghan charge at Dillsburg, York county, in which is 
included the Presbyterian church at Petersburg, Adams county.  In this 
field he continued till the summer of 1894, when his ever earnest and 
ever faithful work in the ministry ended on account of his illness 
having taken such form as to make it impossible for him to continue.
  It was on the 28th of May, 1893, that he was thrown from a buggy and 
injured.  For many weeks following the accident, his death was almost 
daily expected, but he was finally restored to sufficient health to 
preach from his pulpit while resting upon crutches, from December 1893 
to July 1894, when he was obliged to surrender to the ravages of 
physical disorder.  He was loath to surrender the work that he loved 
and had for many years greatly enjoyed, and in which he had been 
singularly successful, but he recognized that the inevitable verdict 
had been rendered, and submissively yielded to the call.  His regrets 
at being forced to retire from the pulpit were fully shared by his 
parishioners, who ever hoped that he would be again returned to health 
and to active work among them.  A request for Mr. Barr to remain their 
pastor, though inactive, until his son, Alfred, soon to graduate from 
Princeton, should be qualified to accept a call to fill his place, was 
an expression of unquestionable love and confidence.  But feeling that 
he would be serving the Master's cause best by declining the 
proposition, he urged that another pastor be immediately called, and 
determined to go into the midst of his relatives to spend the remainder 
of his days which he felt at the most could be but few. He, therefore, 
with his family, moved to Tyrone on the 12th of September last where it 
gave him great pleasure to enjoy the daily association of those he 
yearned to be near to while he awaited the summons to go hence and 
possess the glittering robes prepared for him in the golden city of the 
spirit land.
  Rev. John C. Barr lived to be 71 years, 11 months and 10 days old.  
His was a life of true piety and earnest Christian work, an example 
worthy of emulation by the best of mankind.  Full of sympathy and love 
for his fellow man he ever yearned for the salvation of the precious 
ones about him.  In the home he was bright, cheerful, considerate and 
kind.  He possessed a happy and fond domestic nature, a magnet that 
drew the members of his family about him and intertwined as it were 
their souls about his own on the way to spiritual paradise....
  On the first of May, 1855, the Rev. J. C. Barr was married to Miss 
Jane Hamilton.  It was a happy union blessed with three children, one 
of whom died early in childhood.  The other two survive, viz: Miss 
Roberta C., at the family home in Tyrone, and Rev. Alfred H. Barr, just 
now completing his theological course at Princeton seminary from which 
he will graduate next May.  Mrs. Jane Barr died at Alexandria, Pa., 
March 30, 1878.  After several years of solitude Mr. Barr was, on the 
24th of May of the year 1881, married to Miss Eliza Cresswell, of 
Alexandria, who survives.  In both instances he was most happily 
married.  The intelligent cooperation and warm sympathy of the one who 
was closest to him were ever effective stimulants to the labors of his 
calling.  In illness the same kind, sympathetic hands ministered to 
every need.  Surviving also are two brothers and two sisters, viz: 
William F. Barr of Lenox, Iowa, Mrs. James C. Boal of Centre Hall, and 
S. W. Barr and Mrs. J. M. Harper of Tyrone.
  The funeral occurred Tuesday.... burial at the Alexandria 
Presbyterian church.

The Tyrone Herald, Tyrone, Pa., Thursday, 19 Dec 1895 

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