Biography:James Barry
James Barry
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|---|---|
| Given name: | James |
| Middle name: | |
| Family name: | Barry |
| Place of birth: | Six Mile Brook, Pictou County, Nova Scotia |
| Place of death: | Six Mile Brook, Pictou County, Nova Scotia |
| Year of birth: | 1819 |
| Year of death: | 1906 |
| Profile: | Collector, Composer, Musician |
| Source of information: | https://www.academia.edu/17067409/The Manuscripts of Fiddler James Barry Pictou Nova Scotia?email work card=view-paper |
Biographical notes
JAMES BARRY (1819-1906) was a first generation son of parents who emigrated from Perthshire to take possession of a small land grant in Pictou County, northern Nova Scotia. Barry was a dairy farmer for much of his life, but he also inherited a grist and a saw mill which he improved, and he was a sometimes printer and bookbinder. He had a keen interest in music and was a skilled and musically literate fiddler who could play in positions on the fingerboard and was comfortable with flat keys. His passion led him to amass a handwritten collection of some 2,250 dance tunes, primarily copied from published Scottish music volumes by the likes of Gow, Aird and Lowe, along with a few American publications from the Howe company of Boston (including Ryan's Mammoth Collection). It is the largest 19th century vernacular collection of tunes in Canada. Barry also separately maintained a separate copybook with a handful of his own compositions.
James also kept an extensive diary for over fifty-six years that tells much about his life and times, and his thoughts about others, theology, the weather, events and music. It makes for fascinating reading. His marriage, in 1859, started well but at the end of a decade he was largely estranged from his wife, Isabella "Bell" MacLennan, though the couple managed to produce children[1]. Barry was closest to his eldest daughter Josephine (born in 1862), and there was a younger child, Elizabeth (born 1867). Bell is not buried with James and instead resides in the plot of her family of origin, under her maiden name (though her stone reads "Wife of James Barry"). His comments and descriptions of others could be dismissive, deprecating, sometimes acerbic, and he had contempt for those less skilled musically (though praise and admiration for those he thought particularly good players). He was also an iconoclastic dissenting Presbyterian, and a man who read a lot of books. He described himself as a Morisonian, a radical Presbyterian sect and set himself apart from his more mainstream Presbyterian neighbors; he never attended “preaching,” and many scornful Sunday entries record dozens passing his house, sheep-like to his mind, to services in nearby Salt Springs or Durham. Instead Barry read the Bible at home, and valued those who sought to find God in in a personal journey with the text.
For more information (including digital scans of the music manuscripts) visit the James Barry Music site [1]
- ↑ Barry seems to have been a misogynist and held a dim view of womenkind. By the late 1860's his wife had received what amounted to a two-year order of protection from him, and had fled to her father's house in the nearby Roger's Hill community. Barry remained bitter and angry, and seems not to have been a pleasant man.