BIOGRAPHY: Hon. Abraham A. BARKER, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 434-5
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HON. ABRAHAM A. BARKER, ex-congressman and a man of wide acquaintance and 
successful business experience, was born March 30, 1816, at Lovell, Oxford 
county, Maine. His ancestors were of puritan stock) and were among the early 
settlers on the rock-bound coast of New England. He is a son of Stephen and 
Betsy (Andrews) Barker.
     Stephen Barker was a sturdy New England farmer, and the boyhood days of 
young Abraham were such as are characteristic of the boyhood days of the typical 
New England farmer boy, and were such as to develop a hardy constitution--a 
physical element he has found of great value in life. The school advantages were 
very meagre, and he was able to gain only a knowledge of the elements; taking up 
life's battles on his own account, he became a tiller of the soil, to which 
later was added a lumbering business. These vocations he faithfully pursued in 
his native county until 1854. In November of the latter year he came to 
Pennsylvania, and located in Carrolltown, Cambria county, where he remained two 
years, when he removed to Ebensburg, where he has lived ever since. He still 
continued in the lumber industry, and in 1858 added to it a mercantile business, 
which avocations he followed extensively and successfully until 1880, since 
which time he has not been actively engaged in business pursuits, but has spent 
much time in reading and travel throughout the United States.
     Politically, Mr. Barker was an ardent abolitionist, and for almost a half 
century has wielded a powerful political influence in the community in which he 
lives. He was always opposed to the institution of slavery, believing it to be a 
moral and political wrong; hence, upon the disruption of old parties, upon that 
issue, and the organization of the Republican party, he became one of its first 
adherents. He was a delegate to the National convention that met in Chicago and 
nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in 1860. He was an active Lincoln 
man, with whom he was on terms of the closest intimacy during the latter's 
incumbency. In 1864 Mr. Barker was the choice of the people of the then 
Seventeenth Congressional district, composed of the counties of Cambria, 
Huntingdon, Blair and Mifflin, for Congress. He was elected by a handsome 
majority, and served in the popular branch of the legislative department of our 
government in a way that reflected not only honor upon himself, but with credit 
to his district and State.
     Mr. Barker has always been of strict temperance principles, and was 
earnestly engaged with General Neal Dow in canvassing the State from 1840 to 
1851 in the interests of the "Maine Law." In 1876, because of the repeal of the 
local option law, by him regarded as a great barrier to the cause of 
intemperance, he left the ranks of the Republican party, and became a radical 
prohibitionist. In fact, Mr. Barker has been a radical in the truest sense of 
the word in whatever he has undertaken in business, politics or religion. He has 
been one of the most prominent figures of the prohibition party ever since he 
identified himself with it. For four years, from 1878 to 1882, he was the State 
chairman of the party of Pennsylvania, and has traveled through every county in 
the State working for the success of his party, and on June 6, 1896, was 
nominated by his party for the office of Congressman-at-large.
     Fraternally Mr. Barker stands deservedly high. Of the Temple of Honor he 
has been Grand Worthy Templar, and is a member of the Grand Council of the 
United States. He also belongs to Highland Lodge, No. 418, I.O.O.F.; Summit 
Lodge, No. 312, and F. and A. M., of Ebensburg; Portage Chapter, Oriental 
Commandery, of Johnstown; and Captain John Jones Post, G.A.R., of Ebensburg. He 
joined the Congregational church when sixteen years of age, and the Presbyterian 
church when he came to Ebensburg. In the latter he is active and prominent, and 
frequently exhorts from the pulpit.
     On June 24, 1842, Mr. Barker and Losina P. Little were united in marriage, 
and their marital union has resulted in the birth of four sons, whose sketches 
follow.