Family helped create, cover community for a century By STEVE COLLINS and JACKIE MAJERUS , The Bristol Press 02/10/2004 For most of the 20th century, the Barnes family shepherded The Bristol Press and helped to create the community it covered. >From 1902 until the paper’s sale in 1985, Arthur Seth Barnes and two of his sons, Clarkson and Bart, served as publishers. They were related only distantly to the Wallace Barnes family, also of Bristol. They took a 31-year-old weekly and turned it into a thriving, community-spirited daily that led the fight for economic development, open government and high-minded attention to public policy. Arthur Barnes, who was born three days after the Press began publication in 1871, took the helm after local businessmen turned to him to run the paper after its competitor, the muckraking Bristol Herald, closed down. Barnes took pride in publishing a "clean, daily newspaper" that demanded fairness of its journalists while prodding community leaders to help Bristol grow. When the paper printed an extensive centennial edition in 1971, Bart Barnes said in an editorial that the Press became a "responsible community newspaper" because of his father’s ideals, which he had tried to carry on. Summarizing his own goals, he said the Press intended to "to do our level best" to keep pace with the community it covered "and point the way to further progress." Arthur Barnes loathed sensationalism and once declared to his Yale classmates that "we believe there is more good than bad in the world, and, therefore, never play up crime or scandal." "We value highly the editorial page of our paper and try to have worthwhile ideas on local and general subjects and to discuss public questions in an unbiased manner," he said. When Arthur Barnes died on Christmas night in 1956, his sons Clarkson and Bart took over as co-publishers immediately. Clarkson stay on for a dozen years before retiring while Bart remained until 1985. The day after Arthur Barnes died, the paper wrote that "a general grief" filled the building "because all of us know we have lost an old and trusted friend, a grand old man who was never too busy to stop for a moment’s chat or to extend a friendly and encouraging pat on the shoulder when it was most needed." The Press was located in a wooden building behind the Bristol Savings Bank when Arthur Barnes took the helm but moved to its current quarters in 1907, though the building has seen several additions and many modifications over the years. The city, too, grew throughout the century, tripling in population and seeing its wealth expand to an unimaginable degree as America rose to world dominance. The Barneses always took an active interest in development schemes, from new roads to airports to industrial parks, angling to push Bristol forward. They participated in civic organizations, held positions on the school board and government as they shaped the community with more than just paper and ink. Bart Barnes once described his role as publisher as "a rewarding job." "I am not talking about the financial return of running a small-town daily newspaper," he told his Yale classmates on their 40th reunion. "I mean the more satisfying rewards that have come in sponsoring and promoting causes that have helped build a better community: not just the material benefits, but the humanitarian causes that have needed special attention," he wrote. "A newspaper is in a strategic position to keep the community on its toes and to point up paths for progress," Barnes wrote. "When we see that we have been a force for good, then we feel that we have done the kind of job that is expected of us, in line with the standards that we have set for ourselves." Even after the family sold the Press -- part of a national trend that has wiped out most family-owned papers -- Bart Barnes continued to be a central figure in Bristol. Barnes remained as publisher emeritus at the Press until 1994, when the New Jersey-based Journal Register Co. purchased the paper. Even after that, however, Barnes would maintain a keen interest in the paper he’d done so much for. He wouldn’t hesitate to e-mail a friendly reporter to goad him for leaving out a period where one really should have been. "I like for things to be right," Barnes said. These Barnes are the descendants of Thomas Barnes (1615-1688) of Hartford/Farmington CT. ©The Bristol Press 2004 Back to top