Talk:Francis Jones Barnard

Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- KenWalker | Talk 06:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Significant pioneer/entrepreneur

This is one of those colonial biographies that's very rich, and also about a very important guy as well as an interesting one; I'll crib his bio basics as best I can but there's all kinds of material on him, and on his son Sir Francis Stillman Barnard, 10th Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia (1914-1919)., and also on the B.X. Express (Barnard's Express Co.), which he founded; my only source right now is J.B. Kerr's biographical summaries from 1890, plus bits of reference in modern popular histories and a bit in Akriggs and whatever else is around; this is connected also to several other people and place articles, and theoretically could be one of the core colonial-history biographies,such as his "crack whips" like Steve Tingley and Billy Ballou; he's highly notable even though he wasn't a Premier, L-G, or newspaperman.....definitely "high" importance in terms of colonial histories and biographies...and not just notable because MP/MLA.Skookum1 07:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Via Panama?

The article says he "emigrated to British Columbia in the spring of 1859 via Panama and San Francisco in 3rd class steerage." The Panama Canal didn't open until 1914. KenWalker | Talk 19:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Via the Panama Railway, or if it was only a portage then I'm not sure; crossing Panama without a canal was commonplace, but about which I suppose I could have been more explicit, as I realized what Kerr's account was referring to and took it as a given. Coming round the Horn was still the cheaper, though longer, way (before the Panama Railway the isthmus was a horrorshow); I'm not sure of the dates on the railway so left it at "Panama" as a simple reference; there was nothing more in Kerr....hopefully I'll get back and finish the rendering from Kerr tonight; there's other refs to Barnard - I know from Francis Decker's Pemberton: History of a Settlement in its chapter on Port Douglas/The Douglas Road, it's mentioned in there that the B.X. Express' first offices were at Port Douglas and his operations were on the Port Douglas-Lillooet route, for instance.Skookum1 19:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yup, Panama Railway was built 1855-59 so that would be the proper link; I'll change it.Skookum1 19:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)