Barry, John Alexander

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: J. Murray Beck, “BARRY, JOHN ALEXANDER,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/barry_john_alexander_10E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Merchant and politician; b. c. 1790 in Shelburne, N.S.; m. first 20 June 1814 in Halifax Mary Black (d. 1833), daughter of the Reverend William Black, a Methodist minister, and they had five children; m. secondly 30 April 1835 Eliza (Elisa) Ann (Anna) Mercein in New York, and they had two children; m. thirdly c. 1860 Sophia Pernette; d. 2 Oct. 1872 in La Have, N.S.
    • John Alexander Barry was the son of Mary Jessop and Robert Barry, a Scottish sailor who fled his ship in New York, settled, and became a devoted Methodist. In 1783, near the end of the American revolution, he and other New York loyalists fled to Port Roseway (Shelburne), where he soon established himself as a successful merchant, trading goods from the West Indies and England. He operated several stores in Nova Scotia and one in New Brunswick; he also transported goods to Newfoundland. His shipping business and his efforts to encourage the spread of Methodism are detailed in the diaries of his friend, Simeon Perkins.
    • John Alexander Barry, like his brothers, joined his father’s enterprise. He was elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly for the township of Shelburne in 1827. Two years later Barry was, briefly, a popular hero and the most talked-of Nova Scotian. After he had intimated that a fellow assemblyman, Colonel Joseph Freeman, had engaged in smuggling, Barry refused to submit to the assembly’s orders to retract and pursued a course so impetuous and uncompromising that eventually he was expelled as a member and imprisoned by order of the assembly for the rest of the session.
  • Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=545
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/220134044/john-alexander-barry