Significance

George and Rebecca Barnes represent European American business and reform families, many of them identified with the Syracuse and Utica Railroad and the Unitarian Chburch, who were committed abolitionist organizers and underground railroad supporters and who used their resources to exert public pressure and to raise money for the cause.

Biography

Born in Kent, England, in 1827, George Barnes came to Syracuse in 1844 and studied law in the firm of Wilkinson and Bagg. John Wilkinson was President of the Syracuse and Utica Railroad and an organizer of what became the New York Central Railroad in 1853. Thus, Barnes became a major player in two lucrative professions: the law and railroads. Through these businesses, he also became friends with Charles B. Sedgwick. In 1851, he joined the law firm of Sedgwick and Andrews. (Contemporary Biography of New York, 141-43)

Wilkinson’s orphaned niece, Rebecca Heermans, lived with the Wilkinson family, and, in 1849, Rebecca married George Barnes. In 1853, they built their new Italianate villa on the James Street hill, near the homes of their friends, the Wilkinsons and Sedgwicks. Frank Colvin Sedgwick and Thomas Heermans Barnes, sons of the Sedgwick and Barnes families, became inseparable friends. Both were drowned in 1862. (Journal, April 19, 1862)

This trio of families formed a core group of underground railroad supporters. All three of the men served as members of the thirteen-person Vigilance Committee appointed for Syracuse in October 4, 1850. (Loguen, 395) George Barnes signed a call for a mass convention to be held in the Syracuse City Hall on October 14, 1851 “to take into consideration the Principles of the American Government, and the extent to which they are trampled under foot by the Fugitive Slave Law.” Barnes and Sedgwick also contributed bail money for those indicted as a result of the Jerry Rescue. George Barnes, with others, signed bail for $2000 each for a group of three white men. Barnes also signed bail for $4000 for William Thompson, an African American. Sedgwick served as legal counsel. (Standard, October 16 and 21, 1851)

In succeeding years, George Barnes continued his anti-slavery work. Local tradition suggests that the family held anti-slavery meetings in their library. Judging from Barnes’ participation in anti-slavery meetings, as reported in local newspapers, this seems quite possible. In March 1854, he signed a call for a meeting to support the rescue of a freedom seeker in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Standard, March 20, 1854) In April 1854, he was one of the Directors of a newly-formed City Anti-Slavery Society. (Religious Records, April 13, 1854) The following July, he was one of several hundred Syracuse men to issue a call for a convention to appoint local delegates to a state-wide convention opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. (Standard, July 31, 1854)

In 1855, George Barnes became editor of the Chronicle, which he made a supporter of the new Republican party. After a brief period in Cincinnati, he returned to Syracuse and became the founder and first president of the Syracuse State Bank and the Trust and Deposit Company of Onondaga.

Both George and Rebecca Barnes were lifelong supporters of the Syracuse Orphan Asylum.

Rebecca Barnes died in 1894. George Barnes died in1903.

The Onondaga Historical Association has a photograph of George Barnes, taken in Syracuse, c. 1860.

Site

Built in 1853 as the first home on the hill on James Street, this Italianate residence was largely remodeled in 1878 and 1882 by Joseph Lyman Silsbee. In 1893-94, George and Rebecca Barnes's daughter, Mary Elizabeth Barnes, hired Henry Wilkinson to add a third story and a Colonial Revival façade. Purchased by the Corinthian Foundation in1947 and occupied by LeMoyne College for one year, the house narrowly escaped demolition in 1948. The Corinthian Club, a private women’s club, has occupied the home since 1949. (Hardin, 218-19; Standard, May 12, 1948)

Further research

Further research in anti-slavery newspapers such as the Madison and Onondaga County Abolitionist and the Liberty Press will undoubtedly reveal more about George Barnes’ anti-slavery activism, as well as that of Sedgwick, Wilkinson, and others. Church records might also be a rich source of information.

Thanks to Penny Brissenden for her help with this research. All sources come from the Onondaga Historical Association.

Click on the picture to enlarge