Gallant John Barry

Gallant John Barry by William Clark Bell (Macmillan, NY, 1938).

This was a very elusive book, but I finally got a copy from my usual source for rare publications, Bob Rufalo at Princeton Antique Books in Atlantic City. He found one on the internet that was going for $200 and so I traded him some copies of my 300 Years at the Point. What a deal.

The book, complete with dust jacket, is a fine bio that Macmillan should republish, given the continued interest in Barry, him having been the subject of a recent Congressional resolution honoring his birthday.


Clark provides a great rundown of Barry's career, and his exploits, not only on the high seas, but on land as an aide de camp to General Washington before the battle of Trenton, and in assisting in the roundup of the Salem cattle drive that helped feed the Revolutionary army at Valley Forge.


For me, this book is extremely important in detailing Barry's relationship to Richard Somers, as well as the other kids on the block - Decatur, Stewart and Russ. It positively seals their prior association before the Navy commissions, but doesn't answer the ultimate question of whether the Commodore was also John Barry the school master.

Clark establishes Barry's assocation with the Irish Hibernian society, and Joshua Humphries, the shipbuilder.

It also establishes the fact that while Barry married money, the estate was tied up in court, and that Barry's revolutionary war salary was slow in being paid, so he was in need of an independent salary that the school could have arranged. Since Barry was friends with the school's owner Bishop White and those Federalists pushing for a new Navy, perhaps it was set up for Barry to work part time at the school as a teacher of young men until the Congress approved the budget for the new Navy? This "Free Academy" was, after all, free because tuition and salaries were paid by donations from the pulpet and wealthy parishioners, some of whom were supporters of the new Navy.

Knowing Barry was number one on the list to be made an officer once the Navy was approved, they could have taken him on as a teacher until the USS United States was launched and made sea worthy.

That this would take years was a matter of politics and fate, as there was a rider in the Congressional approval of the new Navy, which cut off funds if a treaty was established with the Barbary Pirate states - whose activites in the Med provided the pretext for the Barbary War. When the treaty was established, the money from Congress was cut off, and not reestablished until the French started commandeering US ships. Our former friend continued hostilities with England after the US won independence, so the French started picking on us too. Forcing Congess to continue building the new frigates and finally establishing the Navy Department.

Once Captain John Barry's salary from the Navy began, the schoolmaster John Barry suddenly ceased receiving his pay and disapears.

In addition, Clark makes mention of a center city residence maintained by Barry, besides his home Strawberry Hill - three miles north of center city. This residence, between third and fourth streets, is exactly where the Free Academy was located, and where a small residence was maintained for John Barry, school master.

So if my thesis, that Captain John Barry served as a Philadelphia Academy school master after Revolution and leaving the maritime trade, and before he was commissioned the first flag officer and took command of the USS United States.

If so, then his being school master of Somers, Stewart, Decatur and Russ before he became their senior officer in the Navy, firmly esablishes Commodore John Barry, as others have unofficially refered to him as, "the father of the U.S. Navy."