The natal day of Mr. Barnes was July 11, 1839, his birthplace, Stephenson County, Ill., and his parents, Joseph and Chloe (Everingham) Barnes. The progenitors of our subject were natives of the Empire State, whence they came to Illinois in 1834, the father dying in Stephenson County in 1845. The following year the widow removed with her family to Iowa, and in the office of the Dubuque Tribune, our subject, at the earnest solicitation of Charles Sumner, learned his trade. In 1856 the young man went to Minnesota, several years thereafter being spent by him in traveling throughout the West. He was one of the first white men to go into what is now Dakota. The party which he was attending settled at Sioux Falls, while he went on across the plains through Colorado and Utah.

Returning to Dubuque in 1865 Mr. Barnes remained there three years, then came to Peoria where for several years he was pressman in the Transcript Office. In 1876 he went into business with E. F. Baldwin, two years later establishing the Daily Journal. For a number of years prior to that time the sheet had been issued as a weekly. Mr. Barnes is a sturdy Republican, a protectionist of the most earnest kind and a bi-metallist. The Journal has frequently been quoted in Congress because of its advocacy of those doctrines and its stirring utterances regarding them. Mr. Barnes is a member of the Masonic fraternity, genial and courteous, thoroughly well informed and capable of advancing his opinions clearly, interestingly and forcibly.