OSCAR MAXSON BARBER, M.D.,
a successful medical practitioner in Mystic, was born in Hopkinton, R.I.,
June 25, 1837, son of Franklin and Lydia W. (Maxson) Barber. His ancestors
were Welsh, Scotch, and English. The founder of the family in America,
Moses Barber, was in Rhode Island in 1652. The great-grandparents of Oscar
M. were Joseph and Deliverance Barber. The maiden name of the latter was
not changed by marriage. Joseph was a shipbuilder in Westerly, R.I. In
1804 he built the "Dauphin," which was the first whaler built in that locality;
and he was its principal owner. She sailed from New London, September 6,
1805. Sprague, son of Joseph, was a sea captain in Westerly. He married
Lucy Stillman, a daughter of Colonel George Stillman, of Westerly, R.I.
Sprague Barber and his wife reared several sons and daughters.
Franklin Barber, son of Sprague, was born
in Westerly in 1808. He removed to Mystic in 1849. In the same year he
became interested in a woollen factory that was established by the Greenman
Company. He married Lydia W. Maxson, of Hopkinton, R.I. They had four children,
of whom two died in infancy. The others are: Oscar M.; and his brother
Leander, who also resides here. The father died in Mystic in 1856. The
mother, now in her eightieth year, is an honored member of the Daughters
of the Revolution. Her earliest known ancestor, the Rev. John Maxson, born
in 1638, was a minister of the Seventh Day Baptist denomination. His son
John was one of the organizers of the town of Westerly in 1660. The Rev.
John Crandall, who was also one of the organizers, was another maternal
ancestor. He died in 1676. Phineas Crandall, who was born in Westerly,
April 7, 1743, died at the age of ninety. His daughter Eliza, the great-great-aunt
of Oscar Maxson, was a resident of Rhode Island, and died in 1897, aged
ninety-five years. On the old Colonial records and in those of the Revolution
and of the War of 1812 will be found several of the names of other ancestors
as well as the foregoing. Grandfather Maxson was a Captain during the latter
war.
Oscar Maxson Barber, after attending the
common schools and Mystic Academy, studied in the New York Homoeopathic
College, from which he was graduated in the class of 1871. He then entered
upon his profession in Mystic, which had been his home since he was eleven
years old. He succeeded to the practice of Dr. A. W. Brown, and his successful
work now covers a quarter of a century. In politics he affiliates with
the Republican party. He is Health Officer of Stonington, Conn. In 1889
he attended the Paris Exposition, and in 1892 he made a European tour,
returning with much food for thought; and he was also a visitor to the
World's Fair at Chicago.
Biographical Review Volume
XXVI
Containing Life Sketches of Leading Citizens
of New London County Connecticut
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1898
pgs 253 - 254
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