The son of Thomas Barlow, late of the town of Duanesburgh,
Schenectady County, N.Y., and was born in that town March
14, 1807.
His education was academical; studied law with Honorable
Arphaxed Loomis and E. P. Hulburt, of Little Falls, Selleck
Boughton, of Rochester, Aaron Hackley, of Herkimer, and
G. B. Judd of Frankport. In July term of the Supreme Court
of 1831 he was admitted as attorney, and in July term,
1834, to the degree of Counsellor of that court; January
26, 1835, he was admitted solicitor and counsellor of the
Court of Chancery.
In September, 1831, he located in his
profession in Canastota, Madison County; married for
his first wife Cornelia G. Rowe of that place, and second,
Charlotte Spriggs, of Floyd, Oneida county. He
has six sons -- George, Edward, Eugene, Albert, Henry
and Flandrau.
In the fall of 1842 he was appointed Superintendent of
the schools of Madison County, was First Judge of the Court
of Common Pleas of that county from Feb. 2, 1843, to the
first day of January, 1848; and State Senator from January
01, 1844, to January 01, 1848. In May, 1841, he was made
a corresponding member of the New York Historical Society,
in the city of New York.
He was granted the honorary degree of Master of Arts by
the Board of Trustees of Hamilton College, in July, 1851.
In July, 1853, he was elected a member of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and in March,
1854, he was elected corresponding member of the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin. April 08, 1854, he was
made a corresponding member of the New Orleans Academy
of Sciences, and granted a diploma, and in June, 1862,
he was elected a like member of the Buffalo Society of
Natural Sciences.
He formed a cabinet in natural history of his own gathering,
mounting and arranging of birds, animals, and especially
of insects, equaling if not exceeding any other private
one in the State, and has from time to time lectured before
societies, literary, educational and collegiate institutions
and univer- sities, on natural history, and entomology
in particular, as the favorite branch of his studies. To
arduous professional and judicial services he thus added
the labors of familiarizing himself with a knowledge of
natural sciences, practically and theoretically, to an
extent surpassed by but few in our country.
Judge Barlow has kindly contributed much
of the history of Canastota from his own records, which
the publishers gratefully acknowledge. As most of the
records of the county were destroyed by the fire of 1873,
it would have been impossible to have gathered them from
any other source.
LAWYERS.--The pioneer lawyer of Canastota
was George Ager; after him Ichabod Smith Spencer, who moved
from Massachusetts in 1802 to the town of Madison. He began
the practice of law in 1808, and was one of the most successful
lawyers of his time. Curtis C. Baldwin, Thomas Barlow,
Israel S. Spencer, Hiram Bennett, William H. Kinney and
I. Newton Messinger were among the earliest of the profession
in Canastota. Judge Thomas Barlow is the oldest resident
lawyer at present, as also the oldest practicing lawyer
in the county, forty-nine years of the time having practiced
in the village of Canastota. |