US Senator. Elected as a Whig to represent Louisiana in the US Senate, he served from 1841 until his death in office. Barrow was born near Nashville, Tennessee, and attended the US Military Academy at West Point from 1816 to 1818. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1822 and moved to Louisiana. By the late 1820s he had abandoned legal practice to run a successful plantation, Afton Villa, in the West Feliciana Parish. As a Democratic member of the State House of Representatives (1833 to 1838) he fought to preserve slavery in the region, calling attempts to ban the practice "unconstitutional and impolitic". Barrow switched to the rising Whig Party for the 1840 elections and rode that political juggernaut to a seat in the Senate, during which time he served as Chairman of the Committees on Public Buildings and Militia. He died of a fever during a business trip to Baltimore and was interred in the public vault at Congressional Cemetery in Washington DC (there is no cenotaph for him there). His remains were reburied in the family cemetery at Afton Villa on October 30, 1847.
US Senator. Elected as a Whig to represent Louisiana in the US Senate, he served from 1841 until his death in office. Barrow was born near Nashville, Tennessee, and attended the US Military Academy at West Point from 1816 to 1818. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1822 and moved to Louisiana. By the late 1820s he had abandoned legal practice to run a successful plantation, Afton Villa, in the West Feliciana Parish. As a Democratic member of the State House of Representatives (1833 to 1838) he fought to preserve slavery in the region, calling attempts to ban the practice "unconstitutional and impolitic". Barrow switched to the rising Whig Party for the 1840 elections and rode that political juggernaut to a seat in the Senate, during which time he served as Chairman of the Committees on Public Buildings and Militia. He died of a fever during a business trip to Baltimore and was interred in the public vault at Congressional Cemetery in Washington DC (there is no cenotaph for him there). His remains were reburied in the family cemetery at Afton Villa on October 30, 1847.
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
Inscription
Born in Tennessee
Died in Baltimore
Being at the time a Senator in
Congress from the state of
Louisiana, of which he had been
a citizen for twenty five years.
Family Members
Spouse
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