Barry, Robert

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Allen B. Robertson, “BARRY, ROBERT,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/barry_robert_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Teacher, merchant, Methodist lay exhorter, office holder, and jp; b. c. 1759 in Kinross, Scotland, son of John Barry; m. May 1789 Mary Jessop in Delaware, and they had five sons and six daughters; d. 3 Sept. 1843 in Liverpool, N.S.
    • In the spring of 1783 some of the leading John Street Methodists, including Barry, joined the exodus of several thousand loyalists from New York to Port Roseway (Shelburne), N.S. Though the majority of these refugees eventually moved elsewhere, Barry determined to stay in the settlement. For two years he taught school in Shelburne and then became established as a merchant there in connection with his only brother, Alexander, of Portsmouth, England. Their firm, known as A. and R. Barry, engaged in the West Indies fish, lumber, sugar, and rum trade, and transported considerable quantities of agricultural produce from the Chignecto Isthmus to Halifax and St John’s. 
    • In his secular activity Barry exemplified those loyalist merchants who created a secure place for themselves in Nova Scotia. His promotion of Method ism gave him a special spiritual attachment to the colony, aided his integration into the pre-existing mercantile structure through select business ties, and kept him in touch with the greater world of transatlantic Wesleyanism. His life is a useful illustration of the dynamic impact that evangelical Protestantism has had on the formation of eastern Canadian society.
  • 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/220083324/robert-barry