Ingham County Biographical Sketches



James V. Barry
State Commissioner of Insurance, Lansing.


Commissioner Barry is of pure Irish descent, his parents, James Richard and Elizabeth (Cotter) Barry, both emigrating from Ireland and locating at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1846. His father was a dry goods merchant and removed to Michigan about 1850. He first resided in Detroit, after locating in Monroe, where he continued the dry goods business until his death in 1869. He left seven children, all of whom are living: James V., being born in Monroe in 1861. The latter's brother, David S., for seventeen years was the Washington correspondent of the New York Sun and is now editor-in-chief of the Providence Journal.

James V. Barry passed through all the developing stages of boyhood and youth in Monroe, graduating from its high school and seeing his first experience there as a newspaper reporter. He removed to Lansing in 1882, serving as chief clerk in the office of the Secretary of State, and subsequently engaging in newspaper work for eight years as city editor of the Lansing Journal. While filling the latter position, he became the correspondent of several metropolitan dailies, and is still continued in that capacity by Chicago, New York, Detroit and Grand Rapids papers.

Mr. Barry was appointed State Commissioner of Insurance in 1901, and has held the office continuously, his term expiring July 1, 1907. In this capacity he is required to make frequent examinations of the condition of insurance companies, to see that they are legally organized and incorporated, and, in fact, to keep them within the bounds of the State laws in every detail. It is a position which requires broad business judgment, keen financial ability and no small knowledge of the law; and that Mr. Barry has so fully met these requirements indicates the soundness of his mental constitution. He is a Republican. He is President of the Electric Light and Water Commissioners, and, all in all, energetic, able, public-spirited citizen.

The Commissioner is a member of Capital Lodge No. 66, F. & A. M., Modern Woodmen and I. O. F. He was married on January 26, 1887, to Miss Gertrude Beamer of Lansing. The two children resulting from this union are James B. and Louise Barry.






Taken from:
"Past and Present of the City of Lansing and Ingham County, Michigan", by Albert E. Cowles.
Published by The Michigan Historical Publishing Association Lansing, MICH., 1905.
Pages 132 - 133




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