09/05/2026
John Barry: 1839 – 1908
Our DPW director sent me down another rabbit-hole this past week. I knew the story of John Barry, but his cemetery plot always intrigued me. How in the heck did they maneuver that behemoth of a marker into that spot in 1909? Very, very carefully, I would imagine.
John Barry was the head of the first bank in Nashville that started around 1875. Think of that. The town started its growth in the late 1860’s, but it took a few years before someone decided to fill the need for a bank. John Barry began this bank with a partner, Dan Evarts, but Mr. Evarts health forced him to drop out and John’s brother-in-law, T.C. (Theodore) Downing stepped in. The bank became the Barry and Downing bank and kept its’ doors open for about 30 years until 1905.
Mr. Barry was a very successful farmer and owned various properties that allowed him to do well. Mr. Downing was from a well-known family of 8 siblings that came here in 1851 and bought 80 acres of farmland near the corner of Hager and State Road, (Vermontville Hwy) ……long before there was any type of building in what currently comprises Nashville. Anna Downing, T.C.’s sister, married John Barry. Two strong farming families united.
The Downing family had moved from Albion where they farmed over 100 acres, and their mother was from a family by the name of Sheldon, who had a large part of building Albion at that time. The Sheldon’s ended up building the first Albion hospital, and had the largest building downtown, which still stands today and encompasses about 1/3 of an entire block. What was Sheldon’s main source of income? They owned the bank in Albion, and their elaborate residence was on the 2nd story of that building. Mr. Sheldon’s remains are interred in Albion’s Riverside Cemetery in his own family mausoleum. Theodore, (T.C.) Downing returned to Albion for college, and no doubt, brought the Sheldon “skills” of banking back to Nashville and went into business with his brother-in-law, John Barry.
They were well-known men about town, becoming moneylenders and running multiple farms in the area. When horse racing became a sport for the entrepreneurs of the town, both Downing and Barry were on the front end of that endeavor, owning trotters that ran at the races.
But why did I choose to write about these men? Well, if you have spent any time walking the Lakeview Cemetery, you might have noticed the large area of Downing graves, that stretch through some 29 headstones in what is known as the “Old Addition.” On the eastern edge of this family plot, T.C. Downing has a large stone, Homer Downing has the rounded above ground crypt type graves in the middle of the plot, and their parents and the other six siblings and spouses can be found there as well. The Barry family stone anchors the West end of the plot.
The Barry’s had no children, and their graves are side by side, but the demarcation of the plot has what can be easily recognized as the largest family stone in the cemetery. It is almost temple-like in appearance and one must marvel at the artisan construction of the granite. This stone, in Lakeview Cemetery, is huge!
That is where a friend, Josh Pierce comes into the picture. Josh is our village DPW director and he recently was looking through an issue of the Nashville News online. He had a question about sewer lines that were placed in 1909 and had accessed the “barrycountyhistoryportal.org”, to see if he could get any hints from the digitized Nashville News about his current puzzle. Once you start looking at these old newspapers, you find a lot of “rabbit holes” to go down.
As he was doing his search, he came upon the small blurb about the ordering and acquisition of this mammoth Barry family stone, and he passed it on to me, so I could look it up.
The stone seems to have been ordered in December of 1908, (John passed away in April of 1908), and using the history portal, we found that it was delivered in May of 1909. It was created by the Lowell Granite and Marble works, which makes one conjure up the vision of a horse pulled wagon with wooden wheels pulling that very heavy load the distance of 40 miles from Lowell. It was not until 1910 that motorized trucks were being used for deliveries and probably longer than that in these rural areas.
Yes, the Egyptian pyramids were built around 2,600 B.C, and in South and Central America there were amazing cities built around 1,000 B.C…… and those huge blocks were delivered using manpower. I still can't wrap my head around that!
Next time you pass by the cemetery, drive in and look at a beautifully carved stone that has been in that plot for almost 120 years. History can be found all around us and all we must do is stop and observe.
