Daniel Barber (October 1756 – 1834) was an American priest of the Episcopal Church priest who became a prominent convert to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

. b.

Simsbury, Connecticut Simsbury is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 24,517 at the 2020 census. The town was incorporated as Connecticut's 21st town in May 1670. History Early history At the beginning of the 17th century, the ...

, U.S.A. – d.1834 at Saint Inigoes,

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Life

Barber was born in

. Barber served two terms as a soldier in the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...

. At thirty years old, he was ordained a minister of the Episcopal Church at

Schenectady, New York Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

. He married Chloe Case, daughter of Judge Owen of Simsbury, Connecticut, and about 1787, with his wife, his three sons, and a daughter, moved to Claremont, New Hampshire. He exercised the duties of the ministry at the

Union Church A united church, also called a uniting church, is a church formed from the merger or other form of church union of two or more different Protestant Christian denominations. Historically, unions of Protestant churches were enforced by the state ...

for thirty years. The reading of a Catholic book opened up for him the issue of the validity of Anglican orders, by impugning

Archbishop Parker Matthew Parker (6 August 1504 – 17 May 1575) was an English bishop. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England from 1559 until his death in 1575. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder (with a p ...

's consecration. He visited for a conference Bishop Cheverus, then a priest in Boston. Meehan, Thomas. "The Barber Family." The Catholic Encyclopedia
New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 21 August 2019 Cheverus answered his questions and gave him a number of books to read. In 1807, at the instance of her parents, he baptized

Fanny Allen Frances Margaret "Fanny" Allen (November 13, 1784 – September 10, 1819) was the first New England woman to become a Catholic nun. The daughter of Revolutionary War officer Ethan Allen, she converted to Catholicism and entered the Montreal conve ...

, daughter of General

Ethan Allen Ethan Allen ( – February 12, 1789) was an American farmer, businessman, land speculator, philosopher, writer, lay theologian, American Revolutionary War patriot, and politician. He is best known as one of the founders of Vermont and for ...

, who subsequently became a convert and died a nun in the convent of the Hotel-Dieu,

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

. A visit he made there greatly impressed him, and Miss Allen's change of faith indirectly had much to do with his own conversion. His son,

Virgil Horace Barber Virgil Horace Barber (May 9, 1782, in Claremont, New Hampshire – March 25, 1847, in Georgetown, D.C.) was an American Jesuit. Life Virgil Barber was born May 9, 1782, in Claremont, New Hampshire, where his father, Daniel Barber was an Epi ...

, who was a minister in charge of an Episcopal academy at Fairfield, near

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, read

John Milner John David Milner (December 28, 1949 – January 4, 2000) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman and left fielder from to for the New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates and the Montreal E ...

's "End of Controversy" after a visit to Claremont. This visit resulted in the conversion of both husband and wife in 1817. The following year Virgil returned to Claremont from New York, taking with him Father Charles Ffrench, a Dominican who was officiating there at St. Peter's church. The priest remained a week in Daniel Barber's house preaching and saying Mass, with the result that he had seven converts, including Chloe Barber and her children, Mrs. Noah Tyler, who was Daniel Barber's sister, and her eldest daughter Rosetta. Mrs. Tyler was the mother of William Tyler, first Bishop of Hartford, Connecticut. Her husband and six other children were subsequently converted. Daniel Barber's son and grandson, Vergil and Samuel, eventually entered the Jesuits. Vergil's wife Jerusha joined the Visitation order. Vergil and Jerusha's three daughters became Ursuline nuns."Conversion of Rev. Daniel Barber. His Own Account". ''The American Catholic Historical Researches'', vol. 11, no. 2, 1894, pp. 81–87. JSTOR
/ref> Daniel Barber was not baptized with his wife, but on 15 November 1818, gave up his place as minister of the Episcopal parish of Claremont. Barber went to visit friends in

and

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, where he entered the Catholic Church. Chloe Barber died in her seventy-ninth year, 8 February 1825. Daniel spent the rest of his life, after the death of his wife, in Maryland and

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, near his son Virgil. He died in 1834 at the house of the

Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

at Saint Inigoes, Maryland.

Works

Two pamphlets, printed at Washington, "Catholic Worship and Piety Explained and Recommended in Sundry Letters to a Very Dear Friend and Others" (1821), and "History of My Own Times", give details of his life and convictions. In "History of My Own Times" (Washington, 1827) he states that his father and mother were Congregational Dissenters, of strict

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...

principles, and he continued in that sect until his twenty-seventh year, when he joined the Episcopalians.

References

;Attribution * {{DEFAULTSORT:Barber, Daniel 1756 births 1834 deaths People from Simsbury, Connecticut Anglican priest converts to Roman Catholicism American Episcopal priests Continental Army soldiers People from colonial Connecticut People of Connecticut in the American Revolution Catholics from Connecticut 19th-century American Episcopalians