Surname: Barnard, Philip, Folgers, Macy, Davis, Chambers, Hallenger Compendium of Biography Of Henry County, Indiana B. F. Bowen 1920 HON. WILLIAM 0. BARNARD.The administration of justice, a very important factor in the well-being of civilized society and the true bulwark in the proctection of the rights of man, will be found in the courts, the presiding officers of which usually attain their exalted positions through moral characteristics, their erudition, their astuteness and keen-sightedness, their firm and unwavering sense of right and wrong,and their aptitude in sifting evidence in such a manner as to separate the pertinent from the irrelevant. William 0. Barnard. judge of the fifty-third judicial circuit of Indiana and residing at New Castle, Henry county, was born October 25, 1852, in the vicinity of Liberty, Union county, Indiana. When he was two years of age his parents removed to Dublin, Wayne county, and thence, two years later, to Fayette county, where William 0. passed his boyhood on a farm until 1866, when he came to Henry county. Of the incidents following this event mention will be made further on; in the meantime,reference may be made to a few ancestral facts. The paternal ancestois of Judge Barnard were among the earliest~ settlers in Massachusetts, and of these Thomas Barnard was a colonial soldier who was killed by the Indians in the King Philip war of 1675. Among these ancestors were the Folgers and Macys, one of whom, Thomas Macy, was the first white settler on Nantucket Island, in 1660, driven from the colonies on the main land by Puritan intolerance no less than that which he had experienced in England. The crime for which he was banished was the Christian virtue of charity, he having given shelter to two strangers, who proved to. be Quakers, against which sect the Puritans were very bitter. Some time prior to the opening of the Revolutionary wat many Nantuèket families who were Quakers had removed to North Carolina, but African slavery, as it then existed in that state, was so obnoxious to them that many, including the Barnard family, sought a more congenial home on the free soil of Indiana. In 1818 William Barnard, grandfather of W. 0. Barnard, settled just east of Liberty, in Union county, Indiana, on a farm and resided there until the father, Sylvester Barnard, was a young man, when he moved to Fayette county, where he died in 1861. He was one of the leaders of the early Friends (or Quakers) and took an active interest in all that the society stood for in his time. William 0. Barnard was primarily educited in the common or district schools and then for three terms attended Spiceland Academy under the tutelage of the late Clarkson Davis. During the winters, in the meantime, Mr. Barnard taught school and for one year was principal of the school at Economy, Wayne county, and for one year taught in a New Castle school. In 1876 Mr. Barnard began to read law, and upon his admission to the bar, in 1877, began practice in New Castle, being for a short time in partnership with D. W. Chambers, and afterward practicing alone. In 1886 Mr. Barnard was chosen prosecuting attorney for the eighteenth judicial circuit, composed of Henry and Hancock counties, and two years later was re-elected. In 1889 Henry county was erected as the fifty-third judicial district. bi which he also served as prosecuting attorney for two years. In 1896 Mr. Barnard was elevated to the bench, and during his term tried as many cases as any one who ever occupied the bench. Judge Barnard. has long been one of the most active members of the Republican party in Henry county, and has been earnest and consistent in his advocacy of the principles of his party. As a lawyer Judge Barnard has always been a safe and conscientious adviser and as an advocate his every address has had a tendency to place the bar of Indiana on a more elevated plane: as a judge, his decisions have been well considered and digested, and have been generally sustained on appeal. He holds relationship with several societies and fraternal organizations, and has hundreds of warm-hearted friends who respect him for his many fine personal attributes, regardless of party or society tie. In 1876 Judge Barnard was most happily united in marriage with Miss Mary V. Hallenger, a native of Henry county, with whom he became acquainted while at school at Spiceland. They have four children, Paul, George M., Ralph W. and Ruth. Judge Barnard is not a member of any church, but on account of his wife’s church relationship and his early associations and education is strongly attached to the Friends and attends and contributes to the support of the Friends meeting at New Castle.