Sylvester Wallace Barnes (May 23, 1824October 24, 1862) was an American lawyer, engineer, and politician. He was a member of the

Wisconsin Senate The Wisconsin Senate is the upper house of the Wisconsin State Legislature. Together with the Wisconsin State Assembly they constitute the legislative branch of the state of Wisconsin. The powers of the Wisconsin Senate are modeled after those ...

, representing Jefferson County during the

1856 Events January–March * January 8 – Borax deposits are discovered in large quantities by John Veatch in California. * January 23 – The American sidewheel steamer SS ''Pacific'' leaves Liverpool (England) for a transatl ...

and

1857 Events January–March * January 1 – The biggest Estonian newspaper, '' Postimees'', is established by Johann Voldemar Jannsen. * January 7 – The partly French-owned London General Omnibus Company begins operating. * Ja ...

sessions. In contemporary documents, his name was almost always abbreviated as . He died of disease due to service in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

Biography

S. W. Barnes was born in 1824, in the town of

Turin, New York Turin is a town in Lewis County, New York, United States. The population was 768 at the 2020 census. Turin has a village, also named Turin. The town is south of Lowville, the county seat, and north of Rome. History The town was first s ...

. He moved to Wisconsin sometime before 1853, and settled in Watertown, in Jefferson County. In Watertown, he was deeply involved in establishing the Watertown & Madison Railroad. Barnes was elected to the

in 1855, running on the Democratic Party ticket. He represented Jefferson County in the

and

sessions. Barnes' political and financial interests intersected in the plan to extend the Watertown & Madison Railroad to the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

. This ambitious plan was wrecked by the

Panic of 1857 The Panic of 1857 was a financial crisis in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Because of the invention of the telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission ...

, which led to the failure of the Watertown & Madison Railroad and Barnes' financial ruin. Following his failures in Wisconsin, Barnes returned to New York. He was at

Troy, New York Troy is a city in and the county seat of Rensselaer County, New York, United States. It is located on the western edge of the county, on the eastern bank of the Hudson River just northeast of the capital city of Albany, New York, Albany. At the ...

, at the outbreak of the

, and volunteered for service in the Union Army. He was enrolled as first lieutenant of Company H in the

30th New York Infantry Regiment The 30th New York Infantry Regiment, officially the 30th Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Organized in Troy, New York, it mustered into service on June 1, 1861, and ...

. While serving with the regiment around Washington, D.C., in the early months of the war, he became severely ill. He was sent back to his family in

Utica, New York Utica () is the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most populous city in New York, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 census. It is located on the Mohawk River in the Mohawk Valley at the foot of the Adiro ...

, where he died on October 24, 1862. Sixty years after his death, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to upgrade him to an honorable discharge.

Personal life and family

Barnes was the son of Abraham A. and Lucinda (''née'' Topping) Barnes. The Barnes were descended from Thomas Barnes, a signatory of the

New Haven Colony New Haven Colony was an English colony from 1638 to 1664 that included settlements on the north shore of Long Island Sound, with outposts in modern-day New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The colony joined Connecticut Colony in 16 ...

constitution of 1644. His maternal ancestors traced their lineage back to Thomas Topping, who represented Wethersfield in the Connecticut General Court in the 1630s and was a signatory of the Hempstead Convention in 1665. S. W. Barnes married Cornelia Augusta Chevalier. They had one daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Howell, Daniel 1824 births 1862 deaths People from Utica, New York People from Jefferson County, Wisconsin Democratic Party Wisconsin state senators Union army officers People of New York (state) in the American Civil War People of Wisconsin in the American Civil War 19th-century members of the Wisconsin Legislature