The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
Author: Michael A. Eggleston
John Barnes (also spelled Barns in some documents) was born on 6 November 1763 in Marlborough, Massachusetts. He was son of Daniel Barnes, Jr. and Martha Brigham.
At a young age, he accompanied his father to war. Daniel Barnes commanded a company in Colonel Jonathan Ward’s Massachusetts Regiment and fought at the battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June 1775. A member of Barnes’ company, Jonathan Brigham, described the action as severe and repeated attacks by the British on the American redoubt constructed the previous night were repulsed. Late in the day the Americans were forced to withdraw when their ammunition was exhausted. Following Bunker Hill, the movements of Daniel Barnes’ company are not known, but some references indicate that John Barnes and his father were at Valley Forge. The first military record of John Barnes is his enlistment on 1 April 1781 in Marlborough.
At enlistment he was described as age seventeen, five foot four inches tall with blond hair, blue eyes and slender build; occupation: farmer. He later reenlisted at West Point, New York in Colonel Shepherd’s 4th Continental Regiment. In his pension application in 1818 he stated that he was discharged by General Washington at Newburgh, New York and his discharge certificate had since been lost or misplaced.
Following the war he married Sarah Howe on 8 March 1785 in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The family including his father relocated to Chelsea, Orange County, Vermont where his father, Daniel, died on 2 October 1813. John and Sarah Barnes had ten children. Dates and locations of births show that the family moved back and forth between Chelsea, Vermont and Saint Lawrence County, New York with most of the children born in New York. The reason for the frequent moves is not known.
In their old age John and Sarah Barnes joined the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, a Christian sect founded in the 18th century in England. This was a strange twist since the Shakers practiced celibacy and were pacifists. Due to celibacy it was a dying sect best remembered for furniture and collecting and selling seeds.
John Barnes died on 12 September 1834 at Chelsea, Vermont.
One of the children of John and Sarah Barnes was Mary, born 15 August 1810 in Chelsea, Vermont. She married Joseph Eggleston of Chateaugay, Saint Lawrence County, New York on 24 January 1832. Sarah Howe Barnes remained with the Eggleston family and died in January 1844. She is buried in North Saint Lawrence County, New York.
Shortly after her death, the Eggleston family moved to Minnesota Territory following advertising bills that offered new land in the territory. They were among the early settlers in Minnesota and appear in the first territorial census in 1857. They had many children and their sons fought for the Union in the Civil War. They are the Great-great grandparents of this writer.
Send a biographical sketch of your patriot!
Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
Additional guidelines around the Biography writeup can be found here:
Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.