George Franklin Barrett

After his father’s death, George Franklin Barrett was sent to school to a Mr. Grimes at Annapolis, and he was also a student at St Johns College for a while. He taught school some in the mountains of Pennsylvania. He afterward took up the occupation of house painting, learning the trade in Philadelphia.

He served in the Mexican War as First Sergeant of Capt. Smith P. Bankhead's Co. & First Regt Virginia Foot Volunteers, and was enrolled June 30, 1846, and honorably discharged August 3, 1848, at Fortress Monroe, Va. His discharge paper, dated Aug. 3, 1848, gives his age as 22 yrs, height 5'-4", complexion light, eyes grey, hair light, and occupation, when enlisted, painter.

He was one of the California "Forty-niners." He went by way of Cape Horn and had a very rough voyage. He did not stay long, nor did he amass a fortune. He returned by way of the Isthmus of Panama and the Gulf of Mexico. He claimed to have made eleven sea voyages during his life. He used to entertain his family telling his adventures as a "Forty-niner."

Before his marriage Mr George Franklin Barrett was for a while private secretary to Jefferson Davis, then in the U.S. Senate; and he occasionally had other clerical employment, procured for him by his uncle Isaac Holland, Jr., one of the Senate doorkeepers.

He was married to Miss Margaret Jane McAlwee at Washington D.C. Nov. 13, 1855, by Rev. Dr Holmead of Grace P.E. Church. Between the time of his marriage and the Civil War, Mr. George Franklin Barrett earned his living at his trade; and it was during this period that all three of his children were born:

Margaret Jane Barrett was born at Washington D.C. Sept 5, 1856 and died March 7, 1890, unmarried. She was a pretty, gentle, quiet little woman, with blue eyes and brown hair. She earned her living from her girlhood until her death, sewing and as an instructress on the sewing-machine. She did not long survive Mr John Parker to whom she was affiance, and is buried in the same grave in Glenwood Cemetery D.C. She died of typhoid fever.

Anna Teresa Barrett (Harkness) was born Dec. 24, 1857 at Washington D.C. Her husband (Robert Henry Harkness) considered her an unusually handsome girl - the opposite of her sister in looks and temperament, but just as good and desirable. She also had to earn her living from her girlhood, clerking and working in stores. She was married March 20, 1884.

Franklin Nicholas Stuart Barrett was born Jan. 16, 1860, at Washington D.C. and died of Scarlet fever at Richmond, Va, Feb. 20, 1864. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery. His sister Anna describes him as a very handsome baby with blue eyes and light curls.

When the Civil War came George Barrett went South with Dr Cornelious Boyle and was employed mostly in the Commissary Department and remained in the South until the fall of Richmond. He had some service in the trenches around Richmond and his there brought on a severe case of diarrhea or dysentery. His wife, hearing of his helpless condition, went to him and took him back into the city; and before the fall of the city he obtained permission to go up to Little Washington to recuperate.

During the war he was sent to various places in northern Virginia in the performance of his duties in the Commissary Department, always accompanied by his mother (then over sixty years old and lame in one leg from a fall and using a crutch) his wife and three children. He returned to Washington D.C. at the close of the war, leaving his family at Little Washington.

He experienced a cold reception from all his old friends on his return to Washington, except one of his old fellow-house-painters, Mr Patrick Martin, who took him in, fed him, gave him some clothes in place of his Confederate uniform, and gave him employment; so that it was not long before he sent for his family and settled again in Washington D.C.

After residing in Washington a short time Mr Barrett and family went to Annapolis and lived there a while, returning to Washington and residing there the rest of his life. George Franklin Barrett died Aug. 24, 1880 a few minutes before noon. The immediate cause of his death was lead poisoning.

He appears, from what I have heard of him, to have been a man of fine parts, well read, a good talker, kindly and social. My wife, Anna Barrett Harkness, and I were once visiting Mr Albert G. Ryan, a former member of Mosby's command, for whom Mr Barrett had worked. Mr Ryan's daughter (then Mrs Newman, now (1912) Mrs Weigel) was trying to help him straighten out his accounts, and they were having some difficulties; when Mr Ryan turned to Mrs Harkness and said "I would not have any of this trouble with my accounts, Annie, if your father were alive. He used to keep them straight for me."

Mr Barrett is affectionately described by his daughter as unusually handsome, with good features, curly dark hair and refined in appearance. A love of strong drink kept him from acquiring the financial independence that was within his reach, and kept his family from enjoying the comfort and advantages which they deserved. His wife, Margaret Jane (McAlwee) Barrett died seven years before him, May 10, 1873, 8:40 P.M. She was a beautiful woman and a devoted wife and mother. She and her children and mother-in-law went South with her husband: and she and her mother-in-law were very zealous in helping Mr. Barrett provide for the Confederate soldiers who came in their way.

While living at Annapolis, Md, after the Civil War, Mrs Margaret Jane Barrett had a severe and prolonged illness during which Father Glasons of the Redemptorist Monastery there took an active kindly interest in her; and in her gratitude, she became a convert to the roman Catholic faith and brought up her two daughters in that Church. (Her little boy, as stated before, had died of scarlet fever while they were in Richmond during the Civil War.) She and her husband are buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery.

After Mr Barrett's death, his mother, Mrs Kitty Barrett, and his two daughters Margaret and Anna, continued to live together, the girls finding employment and supporting their old grandmother. After the marriage of Miss Anna Teresa Barrett, Grandmother and Margaret continued to room with our kind friends Mr Thomas Little and wife for about a year, and then we all (Grandmother Barrett, Margaret Barrett, my wife Anna Barrett Harkness and I and our baby Cornelia Gregory Harkness) moved into house 1409 I Str. N.W. We were a happy family.

Grandmother Kitty Holland Barrett died suddenly February 15, 1889, within one week of ninety years old. Her life had been one of vicissitudes, sometimes tragic; in her later years she became very deaf, her lameness increased, and she had chronic erysipelas in her lame foot; but she was a cheerful, genial old lady, and was very interesting when she could be coaxed into a reminiscent mood. She was buried on Oak Hill Cemetery, D.C. beside her brother Isaac Holland, Jr. George Franklin Barrett

There are burdens we must sometimes bear when we are known to have certain skills. Perhaps because of his clear head and his ability to keep accounts straight, George Barrett was put in charge of settling his Uncle Isaac Holland Jr.’s estate. He clearly did not relish the task, which is never an easy one. I have copies of some letters to his Uncle Henry Stuart Holland regarding the matter. While these letters may indicate some sort of unwillingness to perform the duty at hand, I prefer to read into them the frustrations at the system which requires one to follow the same form no matter how much (or how little in this case) an estate is worth.

George Barrett lost his father at a very young age, and his grandfather Holland, who had become an important figure in his life, did not long survive Joseph Barrett. He went west at a young age to seek his fortune, but came back with only some exciting stories to tell. He fought on the losing side of the Civil War, and bore discrimination because of it. He lost his young son to scarlet fever, and then lost his wife nine years later. How depressed and demoralized he must have been much of the time! Luckily, he had his mother and his uncles to help him bear the many burdens.

I found a poem mixed in with our family artifacts. I can’t tell from the handwriting who transcribed it, and who authored it is equally unknown. It probably had nothing to do with George Barrett, but George must have felt the sentiment, poet or not, as he sailed around the world in search of his fortune, or to fight for the Confederacy in which he believed. So I dedicate this copy of the poem to the memory of my great-great-grandfather Barrett.

Do They Miss Me?

Do they miss me at home? Do they Miss me?
‘Twould be assurance most dear,
To know at this moment some loved one
Were saying “I wish he were here!”
To feel that the group at the fire-side
Were thinking of me as I roam!
Oh yes! ‘Twould be joy beyond meaure,
To know that they missed me at home.

When twilight approaches, the season
That ever was sacred to song,
Does someone repeat my name over,
And sigh that I tarry so long?
And is there a chord on the music,
That’s missed when my voice is away?
And a chord in each heart that maketh
Regret at my wearisome stay?

Do they place me a chair at the table,
Where evenings home pleasures are nigh?
And lamps are lit in the parlor,
And the stars in the calm azure sky?
And when the “good nights” are repeated,
And each lays them down to sleep,
Do they think of the absent, and waft me
A whispered “good night” o’er the deep?

Do they miss me at home? Do they Miss me?
At morning, at noon or at night?
And linger one gloomy shade round them,
That only my presence can light?
Are joys less invitingly welcomed,
Are pleasures less hailed than before,
Because one is missed from the circle?
Because I am with them no more?

Oh, yes! They do miss me! Kind voices
Are calling me back as I roam,
And their eyes are grown weary with weeping,
And watch but to welcome me home.
Kind friends ye shall wait me no longer,
I’ll hurry me back from the seas;
For how can I tarry when followed
By watchings and prayers such as these?

--Unknown author, possibly 1800’s