Joseph Barker (1835-1896)

Joseph Barker was the oldest of five children born to Henry and Sarah Pickersgill Barker in Bramley, Yorkshire, England on September 29, 1835. He had one brother, John Barker, and three sisters, Mary, Amelia, and Sarah.  His father died in 1857, December 16th, at Leeds; also, two sisters died there, one on 29 Nov. 1854 and one 12 Feb. 1860.  He had only one brother left, who was named John, and his mother.

Timeline:
29 September 1835 – Joseph born
11 April 1837 – Mary Ann born
5 June 1860 – Joseph and Mary Ann baptized
11 June 1860 – Joseph and Mary Ann married
24 April 1861 – Sarah Jane born
1862 – Came to Utah
30 January 1864 – Mary Ann Barker born
9 February 1866 – Joseph ordained Elder
22 July 1866 – Emma Amelia born
2 April 1869 – Catharine Maria born
4 June 1871 – Ellen Melissa born
25 November 1872 – Sealed in Endowment House
19 June 1873 – Georgena Madora born
April 1874 – Joseph left the family, went to Nevada
2 March 1878 – Mary Ann baptized again
About 1878 – Mary Ann married James Harvey Dunton
15 April 1879 – John Harvey Dunton born
1879 – Mary Ann, Ellen, Dora, and John left Parowan
1880 – Hole-in-the-Rock to Montezuma Fort
May 1881 – left Montezuma Fort to move to Durango, Colo
Fall, 1883 – moved to Mancos
About 1882 – Four older girls came to Mancos
19 May 1884 – Emma married to Joseph Willden
9 September 1884 – James Harvey Dunton set apart as first Presiding Elder, Mancos branch
5 July 1884 – First Relief Society in Mancos held. Mary Ann secretary
June 1885 – Catharine married to Charles Pinkerton
14 December 1885 – Sarah married to William McDonald Devenport
About 1886 – James Dunton returned to Utah, Mary Ann built a home at “the Park” where she lived in the summer
11 June 1888 – Ellen married to William Halls
1 January 1889 – Mary Ann Barker married to Roy Weston
May 1891 – 22 November 1892 – Mary Ann President of Relief Society.
29 October 1896 – Joseph died in Eureka, Nevada
16 May 1897 – Dora married to Lewis Burnham
29 June 1910 – Mary Ann died in Redmesa, Colorado
20 February 1924 – Ellen died in Huntsville, Utah
1 April 1939 – Sarah Devenport died
11 0ctober 1941 – Emma died
11 April 1954 John Harvey died in Pueblo

This story was compiled by Kristine Halls Smith in December 1998 from material printed in a booklet called History of Joseph Barker and His Family, published in 1954; from Miller, David E., Hole-in-the-Rock, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1966; and from Freeman, Ira S., A History of Montezuma County Colorado, Johnson Publishing Company, Pueblo, Colorado, 1958.

Joseph was trained in England for work as a tailor. He had lived in Leeds, Yorkshire, England all his life, but for some reason unknown to us, had recently come to Devonshire. (Note by Marie Dean Speakman: My mother, Sarah Jane Barker, later added a note in her Book of Remembrance, that “The 1861 Census states that Joseph and Mary Ann Doidge Barker lived on Princess Street and that Joseph Barker was then in the Queens Royal Army, and that he was listed on his marriage license as a ‘Gunner in the Royal Artillery’.) 

Sometime during the late 1850′s, he met missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and became converted to the message they brought about the teachings of Joseph Smith who had established a new church in America. His contact with the church led him to meet another young convert, Mary Ann Doidge.

Joseph was baptized on June 5, 1860 and a few days later, he married Mary Ann Doidge at Stonehouse, Devonshire on June 11, 1860.

Nearly a year later a baby, Sarah Jane, was born to them on April 24, 1861. For some time they had greatly desired to emigrate to the United States. Joseph Barker was having a hard time making a living as a tailor and they were unable to save the money necessary to emigrate abroad until Mary Ann was able to nurse a wealthy family's child for compensation.  They crossed the Atlantic in 1862, taking six weeks.

After reaching America, it was difficult to find a way to cross the plains and join those of their faith in Utah. Joseph found a chance to drive a team of oxen, but there was no way for Mary Ann and the baby to come at that time, so he went on ahead. Three weeks later, Mary Ann and the baby followed.
After reaching Salt Lake City, Joseph and Mary Ann were sent to help settle southern Utah. Their second daughter was born on January 30, 1864 in a little town called Washington. She was named Mary Ann after her mother.

Not long after that they moved to Parowan, Utah where Joseph was ordained an Elder in the church on February 9, 1866. It was here that Emma Amelia was born on July 22, 1866. Catharine Maria, called Kate or Cassie was born on April 2, 1869, and Ellen Melissa, sometimes called Ella, was born on June 4, 1871.

Theirs was a difficult life living under pioneer conditions.  Both parents worked at anything they could find to do. Joseph couldn’t find work as a tailor, so he herded sheep and hauled freight to the mining camps near Pioche, Nevada. 

Again quoting Mary, “Mother loved to go out in the evenings to social affairs. Pa usually preferred to stay at home with the baby. The rest of us would go with Mother. When we came home, we would find Pa reading by candle light. The book he read most was Shakespeare’s Complete Works in One Volume.” Jeanie adds, “What a strong man Joseph Barker must have been!” Mary said, “Mother was a great reader, too, but she preferred something of a lighter nature than the plays of Shakespeare.”

One of Mary’s most pleasant recollections was of her trips to Pioche, Nevada with her father. He would take a wagon load of supplies – chickens, eggs, butter, and other produce that he purchased in Parowan – and sell it to the miners. “Once a tire came loose,” she said. “It was miles to the nearest blacksmith’s shop. Pa didn’t want to leave me alone in the wagon, so he rolled the wagon wheel and carried me on his back all that way and back again.

When Ella was a baby, in 1872, they went to Salt Lake City to go through the endowment house and receive their sealing.  While in the city, they bought their first stove and a Howe sewing machine. Until this time the cooking was done over the fireplace and the sewing was done by hand.

On June 19, 1873, Georgina Madora, called Dora, was born.
Sometime before 1874, Joseph’s mother, Sarah Pickersgill Barker, came to Utah. She died in Parowan on September 3, 1874.

One man who herded sheep with Joseph said that he had never known him to lose his temper, but he was always kind and patient. Another man who had hauled freight with him said that he was “a good man.” A later newspaper article describing his death said, “Joe was a quiet, kindly man, who made no enemies.” Dora recalled that she had “never heard my mother speak unkindly of him, so I am sure she loved him.”

Emma related that when she went to Pioche with her father on one of his trips, he told her that the reason that he took one of the children with him was to help him resist going down into the basements where the bright lights shone, which were the gambling dens. Dora says that “No doubt he had learned to play cards in England.” She said that their mother used to play cards, too, and told the neighbors fortunes with cards for entertainment when they called in to spend the evenings. She said, “Father had endeavored to increase his small earnings by playing cards for money in Pioche. There being expert gamblers there, Father lost everything he had, including his team and wagon during one trip. He felt that he could not come home and face his family under the circumstances, so he stayed in Pioche trying to reimburse his losses. Later he wrote to Mother asking her to come to Pioche to live since he could find work there as a tailor. She consulted with her bishop about this matter and he advised her not to take a family of girls into a mining town to raise, so she was obedient to counsel at the cost of becoming separated from my father.”

In 1874, Joseph left the family and went to Nevada to stay, sending money to them when he could.

Even after Joseph had been in Nevada for some years, he still cared for his daughters and his wife. He wrote to his daughters and Dora wrote that “When I was in high school he sent me a large shell with the Lord’s Prayer engraved on it and a five-dollar gold piece inside as a Christmas present. He wrote to my sister Kate once that he was coming to see his children and ‘my wife, too, for she is my wife.’ This showed that he loved Mother and still claimed her.”
After Joseph Barker had been in Pioche for a while, he left and went to Eureka, Nevada and there he set up a tailor shop which was located at the corner of the opera house.
On Saturday, October 31, 1896, an article appeared in the Eureka Sentinel which described Joseph’s death on October 29, 1896. It said, “Unfortunate Fire. Sad Death of Joseph Barker in the Burning Opera House Thursday Morning. The Eureka Opera House was discovered to be on fire Thursday morning at about two o’clock. The fire bells were rung and it was but a few moments before three companies were on the ground and doing excellent service in controlling the flames.

The fire started in the tailoring establishment of Joseph Barker, better known as ‘Mormon Joe.’ The doors were broken in, and part of the main stairway chopped out to give the firemen a better chance to save the burning building. They worked valiantly for an hour and a half, and were finally successful.

It was generally believed on the street that Barker was not in the tailor shop, as it has been his habit to sleep in his home in Godwin Canyon, but at about four o’clock, when the fire had been effectually checked and the smoke had somewhat cleared away, his body was found near the south side of the room in which the fire had evidently started. He was in a kneeling position with his head between the legs of a small table against the wall. The poor fellow was so badly burned as to be almost unrecognizable, and in all probability must have been smothered some time before the firemen gained an entrance into the shop. This room was broken into immediately on their arrival, but the smoke was so dense that several minutes passed before they could get a few feet beyond the doorway, and they moved along the opposite side of the room from where Barker was found, as the fire was raging most fiercely on the north side.

Joe was a quiet, kindly man, who made no enemies.

It will probably never be known how the fire originated. The most plausible theory advanced is that it started from some charred wood that he was seen to take Wednesday morning from the ash heap left by the bonfire which had been built Tuesday night in front of the Courthouse. He carried these into his shop and they probably smoldered during the night, and finally broke out into a blaze.

The Opera House is owned by Governor Sadler, Mrs. M. Winzell and the Foley estate. The Governor estimates the damage to be in the neighborhood of three thousand dollars. An insurance has been carried for many years, about $2,900 having been paid in premiums, but it was allowed to run out on the first of this month, hence the owners suffer a total loss.

The whole front of the building is badly damaged, and the inside of the hall burnt and blackened by the fire and smoke. The scenery is also damaged.

It is not yet certain that it will be repaired, as the owners have not been able to consult in regard to the matter.”

News of Joseph’s death reached Mary Ann and her daughters when a letter written to him by Kate was returned to her marked “deceased.”

Dora wrote that when her mother was lying ill before her death, Sarah’s husband, Will, asked her who she wanted for her husband in the next world. She answered, "Joseph Barker, of course."