John Thomas Barry

John Thomas Barry was born in 1852 to Edward and Margaret Barry in Maryland. According to the 1870 Census, the Barry family was living in Collamer near Oxford, and John, age 17 was apprenticed to a photographer^[1]. That photographer was none other than his cousin, Alexander McCormick of Oxford.

John Barry made his first steps as a professional photographer in partnership with his friend and brother-in-law Samuel C. Bunting^[2]. According to The Oxford Press of March 13, 1872, the duo began as itinerants in Berks County and the coal regions. They took photographs for just 25 cents. Tragically, Samuel Bunting died of typhoid fever, December 29, 1872, at the young age of 27^[3] leaving Barry’s sister, Adaline, a widow with a toddler.

Barry returned to Oxford to open his own gallery according to an announcement in The Oxford Press on December 23, 1874.

Despite the sparkling advertisement, the gallery was not in operation for very long. Barry appears on the tax list only in 1875, indicating that he was in Oxford through that spring and probably moved on before the end of that year.^[4]

According to the 1880 Census, John Barry and his family are recorded as living in Philadelphia where Barry was working as a conductor^[5]. From this we can theorize that there was not enough business in Oxford for two photographers and, with a wife and two children, Barry needed a steadier paycheck. Especially since the Financial Panic of 1873 impacted customer’s income leaving some photographers in the cold.

Barry returned to Oxford by mid-1884, paying his first tax bill there in 1885.^[6] He is listed as photographer in Boyd’s Chester County Directory of 1886^[7]. The directory did not give a business address, only a home address of Market Street near 6^th. It may be that Barry opened his own studio, as evidenced by the cabinet card photograph displayed here. However it came about, Barry was extended the opportunity to resume his photographic career assisting Alexander McCormick in his gallery and to return to the Oxford community that he knew so well.^[8]

Barry was active in political and community life. He served on the Oxford School Board and in November of 1890 was elected as one of three auditors for Chester County. His election announcement gives him a glowing recommendation:

With Alexander McCormick wishing to retire, Barry had the opportunity to purchase his employer’s studio at Oxford Hall in 1892. The Oxford Press of January 6, 1892 announced the transition:

The Oxford Press ran a follow-up story on January 27, 1892, “J. T. Barry, photographic artist, has placed samples of his work in the exhibit cases along Oxford Hall. The work is fine and shows that Mr. Barry is an artist.”^[10]

The 1890s marked a transitional period in photography that not all of the practitioners were up to learning the new processes to continue in business. The albumen photograph which was the major photographic process of the 19^th century was about to be superseded by a blossoming of myriad processes. Much of Barry’s business in the 1880s was in making carte-de-visite and cabinet card portraits. New formats with new types of prints, such as gelatin printing-out-paper became the trend. Barry was able to embrace these new changes and make the transition to silver gelatin prints. There are examples of his photographs using these various processes in the collection of the Chester County History Center, West Chester, PA.

In 1894, John Barry was given a full-page listing in a booklet titled: “Oxford, A representative Pennsylvania Borough” put out by the Board of Trade. His entry included a photograph of the photographer as well as a very complimentary advertisement:

The high praise in the Board of Trade publication places Barry above Oxford’s other photographer, J. T. Wiley, and the photographers of the county seat of West Chester. It was a prestigious job that Barry secured when he illustrated this publication.

Barry’s son Chester Thomas Barry (1875-1947), may have assisted his father in the studio for a while, but chose a different line of work for his profession, that of medical doctor. He practiced as a general physician in the borough of Oxford beginning in 1900.^[12]

John Barry died on October 16, 1903, at the age of 51 from heart and kidney troubles^[13]. He was survived by his wife, Rosa A. Schultz (1857-1930) and four children, Chester Leroy Barry M.D. (1875-1947), Edward Earl Barry (1878-1964), Sybilla Barry Powell (1883-1960) and Margaret Barry Hansen (1890-1975). He was buried in the Oxford Cemetery^[14].

© Pamela C. Powell, 2021.