Background
Ohio Columbus Barber was born on April 20, 1841, the second son of George and Eliza Barber in Middlebury, a small Ohio village later annexed by Akron.
Ohio Columbus Barber was born on April 20, 1841, the second son of George and Eliza Barber in Middlebury, a small Ohio village later annexed by Akron.
Young Barber attended the public schools until his sixteenth year, when he left school to sell matches.
In 1847, his father had started a match manufactory in a barn. After the manner of the times, Ohio Columbus traveled by wagon through Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, distributing his father's product. The business prospered. In 1862, Ohio Columbus, then twenty-one years of age, took entire charge of it. Two years later, the Barber Match Company, a stock company, was formed. In 1881, early in the movement for the consolidation of competing companies, Barber's company combined with a large number of others in the Diamond Match Company. This combination controlled about eighty-five percent of the trade of the match industry.
Besides the numerous plants in the United States, the Diamond Match Company owned controlling interests in factories in England, Peru, Switzerland, Chile, and Germany. Of this large organization Barber was vice-president from 1881 to 1888, president from 1888 to 1913, and chairman of the board of directors from 1913 until his death. While the development of the match industry was the dominant activity of Barber's business career, his other interests were manifold. In 1891, he laid out and developed the city of Barberton, near Akron, and to that place moved the Akron plant of the Diamond Match Company. In order to supply packing-boxes, he went into the manufacture of strawboard. As a result he later became the organizer of the American Strawboard Company. He also established the Diamond Rubber Company which was later absorbed by the B. F. Goodrich Company. He was one of the founders of the First National Bank of Akron and its president. Upon the consolidation of the latter with the Second National, he was again chosen president. He constructed the Akron Barberton Belt Line Railroad, and in other ways had a large part in the industrial development of Akron and the surrounding community. Through the Diamond Match Company his influence was nation-wide. He was also interested in local philanthropies. He built and equipped a hospital at a cost of $200, 000 which he presented to the city of Akron. After providing for his family, he left the rest of his estate, amounting to over $500, 000, to be used for education along industrial and agricultural lines.
Barber was a tall, erect, well-proportioned man who gave much care to his physical condition. His character was marked by courage, self-confidence, and persistence.
He was twice married; in 1866 to Laura Brown who died in 1894, and in 1915 to Mary Orr.
