 David
Frances Barry was born near Rochester, New York on March 6, 1854.
His family moved west in 1861 to Wisconsin. Around 1870 Barry worked
carrying water for an itinerant photographer named O.S. Goff, a relationship
that was to be reestablished a few years later. Not much is known
of Barry's life from 1870 until Goff hired him in 1878 to help him
in his gallery in Bismarck, D.T. Here, Barry learned the finer points
of photography and became Goff's apprentice, business partner, and
employee.
Between 1878 and 1883, Barry traveled to Fort Buford, Fort Yates, and
other forts in the Dakota Territory. He went as far north as Fort
Assinnaboine in Montana. For these trips he used a portable
photographic studio in which he took most of his portraits. He
photographed famous Native American chiefs, warriors, scouts, and
women including Sitting Bull, Rain in the Face, Gall, Red Cloud, and
Shooting Star. Barry also photographed some of the most important
forts and battlefields of the Plains Wars, military officers including
General George A. Crook, soldiers, trappers, and pioneers. In 1883
Barry returned to Bismarck where he operated a studio and gallery. He
established a friendship with Buffalo Bill Cody and photographed
members of his Wild West Show.
In 1890 Barry moved to Superior, Wisconsin and opened a photographic
studio and gallery dealing in his Dakota Territory photographs. He
moved to New York City for a brief period around 1892 but returned to
Superior where he lived until his death on March 6, 1934.
The Denver Public Library purchased the collection of original
glass negatives and prints in 1937. 
|
