SYLVESTER BARBOUR
HARTFORD: Lawyer
Mr. Barbour was born in Canton, this state, Jan. 20, 1831, the son of a farmer of moderate means, one of a family of nine children, all of whom lived until the youngest was forty years old; the mother being a sister of Rev. Dr. Heman Humphrey,for many years president of Amherst College, and first cousin of John Brown. He spent his childhood and youth partly at hard work on the rugged farm of his father, and partly in the district school. He spent the subsequent portion of his minority in like work in summer, at school in autumn - first in the Connecticut Literary Institute in Suffield, and afterwards in Williston Seminary, East Hampton, Mass., taking a classical course, and teaching district schools in winter, to obtain means for pursuing his education. The next four years of his life were spent partly on the farm, partly at the seminary, partly in teaching select schools and academies, and partly in the study of law in the office of his brother, the late Judge Heman H. Barbour of Hartford, and in the Poughkeepsie Law School; and he was admitted to the bar in Hartford in July, 1856, having the honor of being examined and recommended for admission by the late Governor Richard D. Hubbard. In November of that year, the day after casting his first presidential vote (for John C. Fremont), he removed to Iowa, practicing in Osage, Mitchell county, until 1860, when he returned to Connecticut, practicing for a year in New Hartford, fourteen years in Ansonia, and since that time in Hartford.
While practicing in Ansonia he held many offices, such as secretary and treasurer of the Water Company, Opera House Company, Savings Bank (all of which corporations he assisted in forming), town clerk, registrar of births, deaths, and marriages, chairman of school and Congregational society committees, school visitor, and judge of probate for the district of Derby.
Politically he acted with the republicans until 1872, when he joined the liberal party, and supported Horace Greeley for president, and has since that time acted with the democratic party.
While in New Hartford he was president of the Wide Awake Club, and in Ansonia, during the dark days of the civil war, was a member and officer of the Union Loyal League.
In 1860 he married the daughter of Hon. J. F. Collin, ex-member of Congress, of Hillsdale, New York, and she is still living, with a son and daughter, the latter being a member of the senior class in the classical department of Smith College, Northampton, Mass., with which she graduates in June, 1891.
Source: Illustrated Popular Biography of Connecticut - 1891, Compiled and Published by J. A. Spalding, Hartford Conn., Press of the Case, Lockwood and Brainard Company, 1891
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