Charles Wesley Barnes

Charles Wesley Barnes, born 1821 in Harrison County, Kentucky to Oliver and Polly Brown Barnes, was the grandson of Revolutionary dragoon John Barnes and his Culpeper County wife Milly, who had come to Harrison County in 1799. When Charles Wesley was orphaned at the age of fourteen, he chose Robinson landowners Thompson and Catherine Eckler Conrad as his guardians. In 1842 he married their daughter Gooly, and in 1845 they settled in Grant County on the road from Williamstown, known from 1836 to 1880, as Steammill Road. They were successful farmers and faithful members of the Williamstown Particular Baptist Church.

In the Family Bible, C. W. recorded the names of their nine children as Susan Catherine (who died unmarried in 1865), John (who died unmarried in 1864, as a member of a Confederate unit of mounted rifles on Puncheon Creek in Magoffin County), Jacob Oliver (who married Autinity Conrad and Elva J. Waller and had ten children), Charles William (who married Augusta Childers and had two sons), Thompson (who married Mary Elizabeth Anglin and had eight Children), Albert (who married Eliza Jane Steers and had eight children), Reuben (who married Sarah Elizabeth Webb and had eight children), Lewis (who married Mary Taylor and Molly Mason and had one child, Zula), and Polly Jane (who married Turpin D. Boyce and had seven children). Their mother, Gooly, died in 1867 and was buried in the family graveyard.

With seven children to raise, C. W. soon marriage again, to his cousin Emily Charlotte Barnes, daughter of Delaney and Mary Tate Barnes of Harrison County. Their four children were listed as Jasper (who died unmarried), Ida (who died unmarried), Noah (who married Maude Irene Clark and had four children), and Cora (who died unmarried).

Over the years, although son Reuben moved to Kansas and son Albert to Indiana, many of C. W.'s other children owned farms on both sides of their road, which, from 1880 to the present, has been known as Barnes Road. His children and most of his grandchildren attended school at Cartersville School. Many of C. W.'s descendants enjoyed playing country style music after work hours.

At the very end of the present Barnes Road lived Thompson and Mary Elizabeth Anglin Barnes, with her mother, Jemima Phillips Anglin, from Owsley County. He was known for running sawmills, and she enjoyed running a loom. They started their family with guardianship of abandoned baby, Hattie Curtis, and continued it with seven sons named Chester (who died unmarried, Clay (who married Henrietta Nexhall), Roy (who married Julia Doan), Bryan (who married Stella Roedeger), and Willis (who married Vera Lawrence).

Researched by Betty Barnes
Published in Footsteps of the Past, December 28, 1995.
Used with permission.

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