BIOGRAPHY: Judge Augustine V. BARKER, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 436-7
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JUDGE AUGUSTINE V. BARKER, judge of the Forty-seventh judicial district of 
Pennsylvania, and a lawyer and jurist of recognized ability, was born June 20, 
1849, in Lovell, Oxford county, Maine. For the biographical sketch of his 
father, Hon. Abraham A. Barker, refer to another page of this work.
     Augustine V. Barker was prepared for college in various academies of Maine. 
In 1868 he entered Dartmouth college, from which well-known institution he 
graduated, in 1872, with the degree of A. B., receiving the degree of A. M. from 
the same institution in 1875. His youthful ambition was to become a lawyer, 
hence after finishing his collegiate course he registered as a student in the 
office of Judge E. W. Evans, of Chicago, and later in the office of Shoemaker & 
Sechler, of Ebensburg, and after completing the prescribed course was admitted 
to the bar of Cambria county, in August, 1874, and in 1875 to practice before 
the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and in 1876, before the United States Circuit 
and District courts. He practiced his profession with unusual success from the 
date of his admission until 1890, when he was appointed by Gov. James A. Beaver 
to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Judge R. L. Johnson. At the next 
regular election in the autumn of 1891, he was elected for a full term of ten 
years.
     June 1, 1875, Judge Barker and Kate F., a daughter of George C. K. Zahm, 
were united in marriage, and their union has resulted in the birth of the 
following children: Fred., born May 6, 1876; Lovell Maine, born December 12, 
1884, and Helen, born August 18, 1890.
     In 1862, at the time of the battle of Antietam, when the Confederates 
threatened the invasion of Pennsylvania, although but thirteen years of age, he 
joined the "emergency" service, organized to repel and drive back the hosts of 
Lee.
     Judge Barker possesses in an eminent degree those qualities of head and 
heart which contribute to make the ideal judge. It is said of him by those who 
are in a position to know, that his mind is one strictly of the legal vamp that 
in the unraveling of an intricate case, and in his unerring interpretation of 
the law, he has few superiors in the great State of Pennsylvania, so noted for 
its eminent legal and judicial talent. It is certainly true that the rulings of 
but few judges are more frequently quoted than are those of Judge Augustine V. 
Barker. In the six years he has occupied the bench he has not yet been reversed 
by the Supreme Court in any case that has been taken up from his district.