He was born on Apr. 4, 1838, in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Thomas Barrett, an Irishman. Practically nothing of his early years is anywhere recorded until a family pilgrimage westward took him to Detroit, where, after a brief experience as an errand boy in a dry-goods store, chance and the necessity of earning his living turned him toward the stage.
At the age of fourteen he began an association with the theatre that was continuous until his death. His first engagement was as call boy at the Metropolitan Theatre in Detroit at a salary of $2. 50 a week, and his first appearance as an actor was made within a year as Murad in The French Spy. Two years as a minor member of a stock company at the Grand Opera House in Pittsburgh followed, and thenceforward his advance was rapid even in a profession of sudden rises to fame. During this period he traveled through the midwestern states in support of various stars, among whom was Julia Dean. He then went to New York, and without the advantage of belonging to a stage family or other influence, he began at once to act leading characters. His first appearance there was on January 20, 1857, at Burton's Chambers Street Theatre, as Sir Thomas Clifford in The Hunchback (a part he had previously acted in the West), in support of an ambitious young woman, Mrs. Dennis McMahon, who was vainly striving to rise out of the amateur into professional ranks. During an engagement of four weeks with her, he also acted the title character in Fazio, the Stranger in the play of that name, Armand in Camille, Lord Townly in The Provoked Husband, Claude Melnotte in The Lady of Lyons, and Ingomar, all familiar stage heroes of that time and for many years after.
In March of the same year he became leading man with William E. Burton at the Metropolitan, afterward the Winter Garden, making his début there as Matthew Bates in Douglas Jerrold's comedy, Time Tries All. While at that theatre he supported Edwin Booth (who had recently returned from California, and was henceforth to be his personal friend and frequent professional associate), Burton himself, James E. Murdoch, Charlotte Cushman, Charles Mathews, James H. Hackett, and Edward L. Davenport. Then he went to Boston, where in the autumn of 1858 he became a member of the Boston Museum Company, opening as Frederick Bramble in The Poor Gentleman, with William Warren as Dr. Ollapod, and remaining with that organization two seasons.
He was playing at the Howard Athen'um in Boston, under the management of Edward L. Davenport, when the Civil War broke out, and he responded to an early call for volunteers, becoming captain of company B in the 28th Massachusetts Regiment, and serving from October 8, 1861, to August 8, 1862. Except for brief periods occasioned by illness in his later years, this was the only interruption in his arduous labors as actor and manager during forty years.
Immediately after the Civil War ended, his work began to assume a national phase. He acted with Booth and other stars at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York in 1862-63 and 1863-64, and his travels from year to year took him to Philadelphia, to management in New Orleans, back to New York now and then, to Cincinnati, and eventually to San Francisco, where in 1869, in partnership with John McCullough, he gained exceptional popularity. He had visited England in the summer of 1866, but did not act there, returning the next year for a brief engagement in Liverpool. In the season of 1870-71 he played opposite parts to Edwin Booth at Booth's Theatre in New York, and taking over the management of that house in April 1871, he produced The Winter's Tale, with himself as Leontes, for a run of six weeks. On many occasions during the ensuing seasons, he played Cassius with Booth and others so often that he became firmly established as the leading representative of that Roman hero on the American stage.
In the seventies and eighties he starred in the principal American cities, and his many tours covered practically the entire country. All the standard plays of that era had become a part of his repertory, and he did his best to enlarge the restricted scope of the American theatre by the production of new works. Among them were Harebell, or the Man o' Airlie, adapted by W. G. Wills from the German, in 1871; Dan'l Druce, by W. S. Gilbert, in 1876; A Counterfeit Presentment, by W. D. Howells, in 1877; Yorick's Love, adapted by Howells from the Spanish, in 1878; Pendragon, by William Young, in 1881; a revival of George H. Boker's Francesca da Rimini, in 1882; Browning's A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, in 1884; an English version of Victor Hugo's Hernani, in 1885; Ganelon, by William Young, in 1889; and Oscar Wilde's Guido Ferranti, in 1891, within a few weeks of his death.
It will be noted that all these are poetic plays, far removed in scene and theme from any association with the time of their acting, but in presenting them he was simply following the rule of the American theatre. The time had not come when the stage was to be a reflection of the spirit and life of the moment. During Henry Irving's first visit to this country, Barrett took over that actor's Lyceum Theatre in London for seven weeks in the spring of 1884, and although his engagement there was productive of no finanical success, he was received cordially in professional and artistic circles, and was the recipient of many social attentions, including a banquet given in his honor.
The final stage of his career began in 1886, when he entered into a partnership with Edwin Booth that continued until his death four and a half years later, acting leading parts, and taking the entire burden of business and stage details upon his own shoulders. During their first season, 1886-87, they toured separately, but under Barrett's direction. Their first season together began in Buffalo, September 12, 1887, Booth appearing as Brutus and Barrett as Cassius, and their repertory including The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Katharine and Petruchio, Don Cæsar de Bazan, Richelieu, The King's Pleasure, David Garrick, and The Fool's Revenge. Booth played Shylock, Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Petruchio, Don Cæsar, Richelieu, and Bertuccio; Barrett played Bassanio, Edgar, Laertes, Macduff, De Mauprat, Gringoire and Garrick; they alternated Othello and Iago. When the famous testimonial performance of Hamlet was given to Lester Wallack in the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, May 21, 1888, Barrett played the Ghost, with Booth as Hamlet, Modjeska as Ophelia, and Joseph Jefferson as the First Gravedigger. While Booth was touring with Modjeska the following season, Barrett sought relief in Europe from a glandular trouble in the throat that had been slowly coming upon him. They acted together during a portion of the winter of 1890-91, and in New York, on March 18, during a performance of "Richelieu, " at the Broadway Theatre, he found himself unable to finish acting De Mauprat.
Two days later, his chronic disease had so sapped his vitality that he was unable to rally from an attack of pneumonia. He died in his apartment at the Windsor Hotel, and his remains were buried in the cemetery in the little Massachusetts shore town of Cohasset, where he had made his summer home for many years.
To see Barrett on the stage was to witness thoroughly efficient visualizations of many of the greatest of dramatic characters. In stature he was above the middle height, his features were of classic mold, his eyes were dark, deeply sunken and alert with mental significance, his bearing was dignified and graceful, his voice was sonorous in its wide range of expression, and both on and off the stage he gave the impression of a man of dominant personality and exceptional intellectual powers.
He was married in Boston in 1859 to Mary Mayer, and she with three daughters survived him - Edith, who married Marshall Lewis Perry Williams; Mary Agnes, who became the wife of Baron Hermann von Roder; and Gertrude, who married Joseph Anderson, brother of Mary Anderson.
