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Elizabeth Lawton Barker
Eliza Harris Lawton Barker, daughter of
Moses Turner Lawton and Elizabeth Tillinghast Lawton, was
married on October g, 1873, to Hon. Richard Jackson Barker, a
distinguished ex-union officer. Mrs. Barker is a direct
descendant of Admiral George Lawton of the Royal Navy, belonging
to one of the oldest families of Rhode Island, which was
established by George and Thomas Lawton at Portsmouth.
Mrs. Barker completed her education at Vassar College, and
probably is the best known woman in Rhode Island in educational
and literary circles. She has always been deeply interested in
the public school system and was elected twenty-five years ago a
member of the school committee of the town of Tiverton. For
sixteen years she has been chairman of the school board. She has
been historian of the Colonial Dames of Rhode Island, she is an
active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and
has been vice-president general of the National Society, to
which exalted office she was elected by a large majority at the
National Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution,
which was held at Washington, D. C, in April, 1906.
Fourteen years previous she had been an active officer of Gaspee
Chapter of Providence, resigning the office of regent to accept
the one to which she had been elected. The Gaspee Chapter
presented her with a beautiful silver-mounted gavel made from
wood taken from the old Gaspee room. She is honorary state
regent of Rhode Island and has been made an honorary member of
several Rhode Island and Massachusetts Chapters.
In the National Society of the Daughters of the American
Revolution, she has filled many prominent places, at one time
being chairman of the Magazine Committee, chairman of the
Purchasing Committee, a member of the Auditing Committee, member
of the Continental Hall Committee, member of the Jamestown
Committee, chairman for New England of the Daughters of the
American Revolution Exhibit at the Jamestown Exposition Mrs.
Barker was honored by her state by being made hostess at the
Rhode Island State Building by the Commissioners of Rhode Island
at the Jamestown, Virginia, Exposition.
For four years she was state historian of the Daughters of the
American Revolution and was thirteen years chairman of the
Gaspee Prize Committee. She is state regent of the Pocahontas
Memorial Association and vice-president of the Rhode Island
Institute of Instruction. She was one of the chairmen of the
Rhode Island Sanitary Relief Association during the Spanish War;
was one of the women commissioners of Rhode Island at the
Atlanta Exposition.
Among the other various important positions held ty Mrs. Barker,
she has been a member of the Board of the Woman's College, Brown
University, ever since it was founded, vice-president of the
Woman's Board of the Union Hospital, secretary of the 13th
Congressional District George Washington Memorial Committee. She
has been for years actively interested in hospital and other
benevolences of Fall River and Tiverton, Rhode Island. She has
been especially interested in patriotic education in the public
schools and has taken a very active part in every progressive
movement in the line of education. She is an exceptional speaker
and presiding officer, wields a gifted pen and exercises an
incomparable influence for human welfare and progress.
Mrs. Barker is President for Rhode Island of Women's Rivers and
Harbors Congress of the United States.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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