The Biographical Dictionary of America/Barbour, John Strode

BARBOUR, John Strode, senator, was born in Culpeper county, Va., Dec. 29, 1820; son of John Strode Barbour (1810-'55). representative in the 19th-22d congresses, 1825-'33. He was a student at the University of Virginia and was graduated from the law department in 1842, practising in his native county. He was prominent in the politics of Culpeper county and in 1847 was sent to the house of delegates of the Virginia legislature. He was re-elected to serve in three successive sessions of that body. Then for nearly thirty years he was engaged in large business enterprises. In 1852 he was elected president of the Orange and Alexandria railroad and served in that capacity until the road was merged in the Virginia Midland railroad, when he was made president of that road until 1883, when he resigned. In 1880 he was elected to represent his district in the 47th congress and was re-elected to the 48th and 49th congresses. The Virginia legislature in 1889 elected him as a Democrat to the United States senate to succeed Harrison Riddleberger, whose term expired March 3, 1889. Senator Barbour served as a member of the regular senate committees on pensions, interstate commerce, education and labor, District of Columbia, and organization, conduct and expenditures of the executive departments, as well as of the select committees to investigate the Potomac river in front of Washington and to establish a university. He died May 14, 1892.