Background
He was born on July 14, 1835 at Charlestown, Massachussets, son of George and Lydia Prince Pollard Barker.
He was born on July 14, 1835 at Charlestown, Massachussets, son of George and Lydia Prince Pollard Barker.
Their comfortable circumstances enabled his parents to give him the advantages of excellent preparatory schooling; at the Classical Academy of Berwick, at Lawrence Academy in Groton, and finally at Yarmouth Academy. At sixteen he began a five-year apprenticeship to a manufacturer of philosophical instruments which further prepared him for the systematic study of the physical sciences. After two years at Yale, where he specialized in chemistry and physics, he was graduated in 1858. he received M. D. at Albany.
As a member of the varsity crew he added physical fitness to his mental preparation for a long and active career. The next seven years were spent in teaching at Yale, Harvard, Wheaton College (Illinois), Albany Medical College, and the Western University of Pittsburgh. He returned to Yale in 1865 with an M. D. from Albany, as demonstrator in the Medical College. Later (1867 - 73), he was head of the department of physiological chemistry and toxicology at Yale, serving also as lecturer at Williams College.
In 1881, as commissioner to the International Electrical Exhibition and delegate to the International Congress of Electricians in Paris, he received from the French Government the decoration of the Legion of Honor with the rank of Commander. By presidential appointment he was a commissioner to the Electrical Exhibition in Philadelphia (1884) and served on the Jury of Awards at the Columbian Exposition. He was president (1879) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and later (1891) of the American Chemical Society. Always conversant with the most recent developments in science, he was the first in America to exhibit radium in radioactive bodies. His publications on radioactivity, on the "Conversion of Mechanical Energy into Heat by Dynamo-Electric Machines" (Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, vol. XXVIII), on metals, auroras, and solar eclipses are all valuable contributions to science. He was the editor or associate editor of a number of scientific periodicals.
He was married in August 1861 to Mary Treadway of New Haven.