Francis Jones Barnard often known as Frank Barnard Sr., was a prominent British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

 businessman and Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 from 1879 to 1887.

Most famously, Barnard was the founder of the B.X. Express freighting company ("Barnard's Express"), which was the main cartage and passenger services company on the Cariboo Road

Cariboo Road

The Cariboo Road was a project initiated in 1860 by the colonial Governor of British Columbia, James Douglas...

. His son, Sir Francis Stillman Barnard

Francis Stillman Barnard

Sir Francis Stillman Barnard, KCMG was a Canadian parliamentarian and the tenth Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia...

, often known as Frank Barnard Jr., later became the Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia.

Life

Though born in Québec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

, Barnard was a descendant of another Francis Barnard who settled in Deerfield, Massachusetts

Deerfield, Massachusetts

Deerfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 4,750 as of the 2000 census. Deerfield is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area in Western Massachusetts, lying only north of the city of Springfield.Deerfield includes the...

 in 1642 and was one of that city's selectmen. The family business in Québec City was in hardware, but when his father died when he was twelve it fell upon him to support his mother and siblings.

In 1853 he married Ellen Stillman of Québec City and in 1855 moved to Toronto, Ontario and started his own business. Unsuccessful in Ontario, he left his wife and young children there and emigrated to British Columbia in the spring of 1859 via the Panama Railway

Panama Railway

The Panama Canal Railway Company is a railway line that links the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across Panama in Central America. It is jointly owned by the Kansas City Southern Railway and Mi-Jack Products...

 and San Francisco in 3rd class steerage

Steerage

Steerage is the act of steering a ship. "Steerage" also refers to the lowest decks of a ship.-Steerage and steerage way:The rudder of a vessel can only steer the ship when water is passing over it...

. He arrived in Victoria at one of the peaks of gold rush frenzy in the early colony, and arrived in Yale

Yale, British Columbia

Yale is an unincorporated town in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company as Fort Yale by Ovid Allard, the appointed manager of the new post, who named it after his superior, James Murray Yale, then Chief Factor of the Columbia District...

 with only a $5 gold piece in his pocket. He survived his first season there by chopping cordwood and delivering it on his back, and in staking and working a gold claim, and then selling it. He was appointed as the constable

British Columbia Provincial Police

The British Columbia Provincial Police was the policing body for the Canadian province of British Columbia until 1950. The force is usually dated from the appointment of Chartres Brew in 1858 with the formation of the Colony of British Columbia and associated appointments...

 of Yale that summer. He was assigned to escort two prisoners to New Westminster

New Westminster, British Columbia

New Westminster is an historically important city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and is a member municipality of the Greater Vancouver Regional District. It was founded as the capital of the Colony of British Columbia ....

 and recaptured one at Hope

Hope, British Columbia

Hope is a district municipality located at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland region, and is at the southern end of the Fraser Canyon...

 after the prisoner had attempted to murder him with his own revolver after overpowering him.

In 1860 he became purser

Purser

The purser joined the warrant officer ranks of the Royal Navy in the early fourteenth century and existed as a Naval rank until 1852. The development of the warrant officer system began in 1040 when five English ports began furnishing warships to King Edward the Confessor in exchange for certain...

 of the steam vessel

Steamboat

A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...

 Yale, which had been built by the businessmen of Yale to be the first steamer capable of reaching the Yale wharf, as all earlier vessels had only been able to voyage as far as Hope. In a joint contract with a Captain Powers , he also won a government contract to build the trail from Yale to Boston Bar

Boston Bar, British Columbia

Boston Bar is an unincorporated town in the Fraser Canyon of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It was not named for an organization of Massachusetts lawyers but dates from the time of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush...

. Doing well, between the roadbuilding and his job with the steamer, he sent to Ontario to bring out his wife and two small children. They arrived in Victoria in December, arriving on the mainland via the steamer Yale on its next-to-last voyage, as it was blown up ust below Hope in a boiler accident on its next voyage. Though most others were killed, Barnard had been sitting at the dining table and was thrown out of the vessel by the explosion, and was rescued by local First Nations

First Nations

First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...

 people. Shortly after he was awarded a contract to grade and "stamp" (the pre-asphalt equivalent of paving) Douglas Street, one of the principal streets of Yale.
,
It was his next enterprise, begun in the fall of 1860, that would grow to become the B.X. Express one of the most important companies in the early history of the Colony, and which would remain in business for decades. He began by carrying mail and newspapers, on foot, all the way from Yale to the goldfield towns of the Cariboo, a 760-mile roundtrip journey, charging $2 per letter and selling newspapers in the goldfields for $1 a copy. In 1861 and 1862 he also carried packages between Yale and New Westminster, a distance of 200 miles, and in 1862 established a one-horse pony express

Pony Express

The Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the High Sierra from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, from April 3, 1860 to October 1861...

, with himself as sole rider, serving the Cariboo from Yale, where he met with services from New Westminster and Yale provided by Dietz & Nelson (one of the partners in which was the later Lieutenant-Governor Hugh Nelson

Hugh Nelson (Canadian politician)

Hugh Nelson was a Canadian parliamentarian and the fourth Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.Born in his father's residence, Shire Cottage in Inagheramore, Larne, County Antrim, Ireland, the son of Robert Nelson, Esq. and Frances Quinn, he emigrated to California in 1854...

 and couriered reliably from there to Barkerville. On his return journeys, he became entrusted with shipments of gold dust, and managed to reliably and safely convey earnings from the goldfields to Yale despite the ever-present risk of robbery, in addition to the difficulties posed by distance, climate, and the difficult canyon and plateau trails.

With the completion of the first section of the Old Cariboo Road

Old Cariboo Road

The Old Cariboo Road is a reference to the original wagon road to the Cariboo gold fields in what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia...

 to Soda Creek in 1862 , Barnard used his own acquired capital and found a backer to launch Barnard's Express and Stage Line with fourteen six-horse coaches and a famous team of "crack whips" to drive them, including legendary drivers Steve Tingley

Stephen Tingley

Stephen Tingley was a stagecoach driver and one of the original owners of the pioneer transportation company BC Express that served the Cariboo region in British Columbia, Canada for 60 years, from 1860, when it was first founded as Barnard's Express, until 1920, when it ceased its sternwheeler...

 and Billy Ballou. The onset of the busiest phase of movement of miners and goods to and from the Cariboo Gold Rush

Cariboo Gold Rush

The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Although the first gold discovery was made in 1859 at Horsefly Creek, followed by more strikes at Keithley Creek and Antler Horns lake in 1860, the actual rush did not begin until 1861, when these discoveries were...

 began that year, and Barnard's new company prospered from a buys trade in services for passengers, freight, letters, newspapers and gold dust, and in 1864 was able to expand his business further with the purchase of more rolling stock and also in winning the government contract to carry the mail. Barnard was also able to encourage the government to end the gold escort with the result that his company's coaches, equipped with armed guardsmen, would be fully in charge of the movement of gold from the Cariboo to the Coast. In 1866 Barnard bought out Dietz and Nelson and so came into control of the bulk of business connecting Victoria to Barkerville, as he was now in control of shipments between Victoria and Yale as well as from Yale northwards. In 1868 he moved his family to Victoria, though himself continued to live in Yale, which was the focus of his business operations.

Barnard went into partnership with a J.C. Beedy to invest in the use of "road steamers", which resembled a railway steam engine) on the Cariboo Road

Cariboo Road

The Cariboo Road was a project initiated in 1860 by the colonial Governor of British Columbia, James Douglas...

 and obtained a licence from the legislature to operate them for one year. Six were brought from their place of manufacture in Scotland but proved unusable on the steep grades and rough road surfaces of the colony, which they made even rougher thanks to their bulldozer-like treads, and all but two were sent back to Scotland, with Barnard absorbing heavy financial losses from the failed enterprise.

In 1874 Barnard won the government contract to build the Edmonton to Cache Creek section of the new transcontinental telegraph line (all telegraph communications between BC and the outside world had until then gone through the United States). This proved to be disastrous, as the government's plans were ill-conceived, changing the route twice, and Barnard was forced to sit on a large investment in steamboats, packtrains, supplies, wire and other supplies until 1874, when a new government (that of A.C. Elliott) cancelled the contract altogether, as its predecessor had commissioned the clearing of a right-of-way for telegraph and railway before even confirming the route. Barnard pursued a large claim for compensation, but the strain to his health from the losses incurred in this venture and the previous road-steamers misadventure contributed to a failing constitution. Barnard had his first paralyzing stroke in 1880, which left him invalid until his death on July 10, 1889.

Political career

Barnard was first elected to the colonial legislature in 1866, as the member for Yale, in which position he served until 1870. Barnard, along with others such as John Robson, Hugh Nelson and Dr. Carrall, is considered to have been a "prime mover and father of confederation" in British Columbia, campaigning in the legislature and "on the stump". Nevertheless, he resigned just before Confederation for British Columbia was achieved due to the circumstances of a private members' bill he wished to see pass. Although active in politics by way of his business activities, Barnard did not re-enter electoral politics until 1879, when he was elected with a large majority to the Canadian House of Commons

Canadian House of Commons

The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...

 as a candidate of the Conservative Party of Canada

Conservative Party of Canada (historical)

The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the...

, representing the Yale

Yale (electoral district)

Yale was a federal electoral district in British Columbia, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1872 to 1892 and from 1917 to 1953....

 at the federal level and winning re-election twice. Because of his worsening health, he did not seek re-election in the general election of 1887 and in 1888 declined appointment to the Canadian Senate for the same reason.

Family

Barnard had three children, the eldest Francis Stillman Barnard

Francis Stillman Barnard

Sir Francis Stillman Barnard, KCMG was a Canadian parliamentarian and the tenth Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia...

, also known as Frank Barnard, continued the family business operations and also entered politics, becoming an MP and eventually Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. His younger son George Henry Barnard

George Henry Barnard

George Henry Barnard was a Canadian lawyer and Conservative politician.Born in Victoria, British Columbia, the son of Francis Jones Barnard and Ellen Stillman, Barnard was educated...

 sat as both an MP and a senator. His daughter Alice married John Andrew Mara

John Andrew Mara

John Andrew Mara was a Canadian merchant, rancher and a politician at both the provincial and federal levels....

, also notable as a pioneer as well as an MP, and another son George Henry Mara, of Victoria. .