Background

Barrows was born on May 26, 1845, in New York City, the third son of Richard and Jane (Weekes) Barrows. In early childhood the death of his father left the family in poverty, and Barrows went to work before he was nine years old as errand boy in the printing-press establishment of his cousin, Richard Hoe.

Education

He taught himself shorthand and telegraphy, and operated the first private telegraph line in New York. In 1871 he entered the Harvard Divinity School, interspersing three years of theological study with summers on the western plains as newspaper correspondent with Stanley and Custer.

Career

A professional stenographer at eighteen, he became a reporter on the New York Tribune three years later. Barrows acted as private secretary to William H. Seward, then secretary of state. After a year's further study in Leipzig, he was in 1876 installed as pastor of the First Church in Dorchester, Massachussets, which he served for four years. From 1880 to 1896 he was editor of the Christian Register, the Unitarian national weekly. During these years he traveled widely, both in this country and abroad.

During these years he traveled widely, both in this country and abroad, and his many-sided interests made him a frequent attendant upon the meetings and a constant contributor to the proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, the National and International Prison Congresses, the Society for International Law, the Society of Biblical Research, the Lake Mohonk Conferences on the Indian and on International Arbitration, and numerous other organizations.

In addition, he wrote The Doom of the Majority and A Baptist Meeting House (1890), two short religious and theological books; The Shaybacks in Camp (1887), a description of the life in the Barrows camp on Lake Memphremagog, written jointly with Mrs. Barrows; and The Isles and Shrines of Greece (1898), a product of his long-continued Greek studies.

An indefatigable student of the Greek language and literature, he had the good fortune to be working alongside Durpfeld at the very time when the actual Homeric Troy was unearthed. In 1896 he was elected to Congress from the tenth district in Boston. During his single term, he interested himself particularly in civil service reform and in parole for Federal prisoners and opposed entrance into the Spanish War up to the very hour of the declaration. In 1900 he became corresponding secretary of the Prison Association of New York, a position which he held until his death. He made the Association a power for prison reform in New York and throughout the nation, himself drafting and securing the passage of New York's first probation law, and being largely instrumental in the enactment of the Federal parole law. The long series of reports which he wrote and compiled as secretary of the Prison Association and as International Prison Commissioner for the United States, an office to which he was first appointed by President Cleveland in 1895, are among the most valuable documents of American penological literature. During nine years of ceaseless activity, he did an immense amount of work for the improvement of legislation at Albany and Washington, at the same time helping personally hundreds of men at liberty on probation, as well as other needy persons, conducting an enormous correspondence with all parts of the world, carrying on literary and reform activities of the most varied sorts in a dozen different fields.

He made repeated trips abroad for the study of prisons and prison methods, coming back in 1907, for example, when a new prison to replace Sing Sing was under contemplation, with detailed plans and descriptions of no less than thirty-six of the best prisons in fourteen different countries. As International Prison Commissioner for the United States, he had much to do with the development of the International Prison Congress, and in 1905 he was elected its president. Always deeply interested in peace, during his term in Congress he was made official American representative on the Interparliamentary Union for International Arbitration, and up to his death he labored zealously in that cause.

An accomplished linguist, an enthusiastic worker in copper and brass, a musician of no mean attainments, a public speaker in constant demand, a prolific writer, he was at the same time a man of genial personality, to whom friends and strangers alike turned for personal aid and counsel. The literary results of his religious and theological studies are to be found chiefly in the files of the Christian Register and in magazine articles, and the fruits of his prison studies in his reports and articles. He was also the author of numerous magazine articles on general subjects. In addition, he wrote The Doom of the Majority and A Baptist Meeting House (1890), two short religious and theological books; The Shaybacks in Camp (1887), a description of the life in the Barrows camp on Lake Memphremagog, written jointly with Mrs. Barrows; and The Isles and Shrines of Greece (1898), a product of his long-continued Greek studies.

Achievements

• His many-sided interests made him a frequent attendant upon the meetings and a constant contributor to the proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, the National and International Prison Congresses, the Society for International Law, the Society of Biblical Research, the Lake Mohonk Conferences on the Indian and on International Arbitration, and numerous other organizations.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Shaybacks in camp; ten summers under canvas

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Children's Courts in the United States: Their Origin, Development, and Results

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Prison Systems of the United States: Reports Prepared for the International Prison Commission. S. J. Barrows, Commissioner for the United States

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • West Roxbury Sermons

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Report of Proceedings of the Seventh International Prison Congress

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • The Doom Of The Majority Of Mankind

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Tour Of The Interparliamentary Union Tendered By The Government Of The United States

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • New Legislation Concerning Crimes, Misdemeanors, and Penalties: Compiled From the Laws of the Fifty-Fifth Congress and From the Session Laws of the ... the International Prison Commission 1900

    (Originally published in 1900. This volume from the Cornel...)

  • The Shaybacks in Ten Summers Under Canvas (Classic Reprint)

Views

He had an unfailing interest in the education of the Negro and the Indian, in woman suffrage, total abstinence, prison reform, international understanding - in short, every reform that promised better conditions of living anywhere.

Connections

On June 28, 1867, he married Isabel Hayes Chapin. They had one daughter, Mabel Hay, and an adopted son, William Burnet.

Father:

Richard Barrows

Mother:

Jane (Weekes) Barrows

Wife:

Isabel Hayes Chapin

Daughter:

Mabel Hay Barrows

Son:

William Burnet Barrows

References

• A Sunny Life: The Biography Of Samuel June Barrow