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REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER JAMES BARHAM



BURIAL SITE:

Mount Pleasant Cemetery, near Bois D’Arc and Willard, Greene County, Missouri.

From AB Highway in Willard, go 4.6 miles west on Highway 160. Then turn left on Highway UU (south) and go .8 mile to the first left-turning road. Turn here (east) on Farm Road 76 and go .5 mile to the first right-turning road. Turn here (south) on Farm Road 75 and go .6 mile to where the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church is located. The church is on the left and the cemetery is on the right, enclosed by a strong wire fence.

James Barham’s grave is located in the southwest corner of the cemetery under a large cedar tree and is easily found. The Barham Coat of Arms appears on the back side of his marker and is visible from the road, as the front of his marker faces west.

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TOMBSTONE INSCRIPTION:

Front side: JAS. BARHAM / WHITEHEAD’S / VA. MIL. / REV. WAR / MAY 18, 1764 / SOUTHAMPTON / COUNTY, VA. / JAN. 8, 1865 / GREENE / COUNTY, MO.

Back side: (Barham Coat of Arms--the shield includes bears and a stork or other bird on top of the helmet. The motto given is "Fortis et Patiens.")

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James Barham (Jr.) was born in Southampton County, Virginia in 1764 to James (Sr.) and Mary (Thorpe) Barham. He entered the Virginia Militia on January 1, 1781, at the age of sixteen, from Southampton County. He served in Whitehead’s Virginia Militia in General Nathaniel Greene’s division. He was present when Cornwallis surrendered to General Greene.

Three years after the Revolution he moved to North Carolina and lived in Wake (1785-1791), Guilford (1792-1798), and Stokes (1799-1812) Counties.

He married first in 1785 at Wake County, North Carolina to Prudence (Freeman) Dunn, widow of John Dunn, and daughter of Josiah and Phoebe (Stokes) Freeman. She had 6 children by her first marriage who all grew to love their stepfather, James Barham.

In 1813 Barham moved his family to Kentucky where he eventually resided in three counties, Logan (1813-1827), Calloway (1828-1833), and Trigg (1833-1846). His first wife, Prudence, died on January 1, 1815 in Logan County, Kentucky and was buried on the farm belonging to Charles and Sarah (Barham) Robinson. James married second in Logan County on September 11, 1815 to Elizabeth Houston. While living at Callaway County, Kentucky he applied for a Revolutionary War pension on June 24, 1833 when he was 69 years of age.

He was transferred from the Kentucky Pension Roll to that of Missouri on December 28, 1846 as shown by the Greene County Justice Court records (Witness: John B. Robinson). Earlier that year he had made his final move to Greene County, Missouri to be near his children.

From court records we find that James Barham later applied for a bounty land warrant in Greene County on April 10, 1855, when he was 92 years old (Witness: Thomas G. McKoin, his son-in-law).

He died at the home of his grandson, James Robinson, on Leiper Prairie, 15 miles west of Springfield in Greene County on January 8, 1865 in his 101st year and was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

A headstone was erected and dedicated at his burial site on October 16, 1937 by the Rachel Donelson Chapter DAR of Springfield. A new headstone that includes the Barham Coat of Arms on the back side, was erected by a descendant sometime after about 1980.

The Ozark Mountain Chapter Sons of the American Revolution held a grave marking ceremony for James Barham on August 16, 2003.


(c) Copyright 1998-2005.

Last updated May 15, 2005.


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