Horace N. Barnes (1804–1877)

Horace N. Barnes, son of Aaron Barnes and Martha Eggleston, was born in 1804 in Sharon, Litchfield County, Connecticut.[1] Horace married Sarah Tucker in 1829. From 1830 to 1870, Horace lived in Galen, Wayne County, New York, about twenty-three miles from Palmyra. He was a farmer. When Philastus Hurlbut came to Palmyra seeking affidavits against the Prophet Joseph Smith, Horace signed the “Testimony of 51 Neighbors” on December 4, 1833, later printed in Mormonism Unvailed.[2] Horace died in November 1877 in Galen, New York. He was buried in the Maple Grove Cemetery in Clyde, Wayne County, New York.[3]


Horace Barnes’s Timeline

1804: Born in Sharon, Litchfield County, Connecticut, to Aaron Barnes and Martha Eggleston.

1829: Marries Sarah Tucker.

1830-1870: Lives in Galen, Wayne County, New York, approximately twenty-three miles from Palmyra. Works as a farmer during this period.

December 4, 1833: Signs the “Testimony of 51 Neighbors” against Joseph Smith, which is later included in the publication Mormonism Unvailed by E.D. Howe.

November 1877: Dies in Galen, New York.

Post-1877: Buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Clyde, Wayne County, New York.


[1] Connecticut Town Birth Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection), Ancestry.com.

[2] Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, pp. 366–367.

[3] “Obituary,” The Clyde Times [Wayne Co., NY], November 8, 1877.