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the Barber & Lacey families of Kirkman, Iowa...
A Brief Family History
How we all got here...
Our ancestors were a part of the history of dramatic western expansion of the United States after the War of 1812 (through 1815).  The Harris family, the Wylands, and the Laceys made their way West via Ohio, Indiana, and then settled in Shelby County, Iowa. 
 
The Barber family originates in Pennsylvania.  The patriarch, Rev. James Barber, was born in Manor Township, Lancaster County Pennsylvania 22 April 1797, and lived his entire adult life in and around New Berlin, PA.  He and his wife Mary (Maize) Barber had eleven children.  In 1817 James became an ordained minister of the Evangelical church, and devoted the next 50 years to this career.  One son, James Maize Barber, moved his family to Indiana and this branch of the Barber family is still there in the present day.  Another son, Michael Maize Barber, removed to Shelby, Ohio.  Various of the daughters married into local families in Pennsylvania.
 
Our Great-grandfather, John Knisley Barber and his wife Mary Harter Barber first lived after their marriage (1855) near Hamburg, Clinton County, Pennsylvania.  Later they lived in the Nippenose Valley on the Susquehanna River, not far West of Williamsport, PA in Lycoming County.  Some time around 1868 to 1869, they brought their family directly from Pennsylvania to Oakfield, Audubon County, Iowa, and thence to a farm not far from Kirkman, in Shelby County, Iowa.  Family lore has it that "Grandpa Wolfe" (on the matriarchal side) convinced several of them to come out to Iowa to develop land that he had acquired.  John K. is said to have been a carpenter who supervised the construction of all the buildings on the farms in Iowa.  Of course, like everyone of the period, he engaged in farming.
 
John K. Barber's son Joseph Lutz Barber was a successful farmer himself in Shelby County, just West of Kirkman, and three other sons -- James Douglas, J. Frank, and Charles William -- moved their families to the prairies of South Dakota in the early 1900's, where they all farmed near each other just outside of the town of Lane, in Jerauld County, Franklin Township.  James D.'s daughter Winnie and her husband Charles J. Miller also moved to Franklin Township in 1907 and farmed there.  A J.K. Barber daughter -- Arabelle -- and her husband Ira Jasper Harris also moved to South Dakota about 1914, and lived in Madison, South Dakota.  Youngest daughter Effie married and stayed in Shelby County, while other Barber daughters wound up in Colorado, Idaho, and California.
 
In more recent years, J.K. Barber descendants have now scattered all over North America -- in Iowa, Texas, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Arizona, New York State, California, Idaho, Washington, Oregon;  and in Ontario and Nova Scotia, Canada.  Lacey descendants still live in the Ozarks of Missouri, in Nebraska, Oregon and elsewhere, and there are still Wyland and Harris offspring in Shelby County, Iowa.

 
Surnames

 
* Metzgar / Wyland / Harris
 
* Lacey / Shew
 
* Lacey / Gardner / Olson
 
* Lacey / Jessup
 
* Lacey / Dalton
 
* Edsall
 
* Maess / Maize / Barber
 
Barber / Miller

George Philip Metzgar was born in Germany about 1737 and came to America about 1760.  He settled in Pennsylvania near Morrison's Cove, and married Anna Louise Julianna Broombaugh.  Descendants included members of the Wyland and Harris families.  In 1878, Emma Catherine Harris, daughter of John C. Harris of Shelby County, Iowa, married William Albert Eugene Lacey.  (To see the family tree, contact the Webmaster.)

The matriarchal side of the Barber line dates from the birth of John George Maess, 20 November 1704 in Germany.  His descendant Mary Maize married Rev. James Barber, who was born in 1797 in Pennsylvania. 
 
Little was known of our Great-great grandfather James Barber before the Summer of 2004.  Someone vaguely remembered that "he was some kind of preacher," but nothing else.   Then an enquiry to the Evangelical Association in Pennsylvania brought confirmation of his life and career. 
 
The "new" information is included in a completely re-worked "Family Record of the Barber's and Lacey's" which began as two handwritten pages in 1948 and is now a booklet of almost 300 pages and documents well over 800 names of descendants.  It has been updated in January 2008.  To obtain a copy, click below:
 

To purchase a copy, click on this link: www.lulu.com/BarberLaceyFam
 
Reproduction and binding of the booklet is quoted on Lulu at cost, and mailing is extra.

Margaret Harris (possibly connected to the Harris line above) and Soloman D. Lacey had four children in Indiana:  Alice M., Emma J., William A. E., and Sarah S.  William AE's first wife was Emma Catherine Harris.  Together they had six children, the last two of which died in childhood:  Sylvia Edith, Oscar Wayne, Austin D., Elmer J., Rhetta I., and Vere.  After Emma's death in 1894, he married Mary Ann Thraen, with whom he had two additional children, Clarence Odell and Marie. 

With second husband Robert George Edsall, Margaret Harris Lacey had a fifth child:  Minnie Luella, who married David Edwin Shew. 

(c) Copyright 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 the Barber and Lacey families.  Family members are welcome to download copies of the materials for their own personal use. No commercial uses are authorized.