Army and Navy Journal, 08 January 1880: obituary for Mrs. Wm. F. Barry
The friends of the late Gen. Wm. F. Barry had scarcely recovered from the shock caused by his death when we are informed of the death of Mrs. Barry, which occurred at Buffalo, M.Y., last week.
Mrs. Katharine W. Barry was the daughter of the late James McKnight, who went to Buffalo from Massachusetts something more than fifty years since. When what was called the "Patriot war" broke out on the Canada frontier forty years since, the 2d Artillery was ordered to Buffalo. General Barry was then a young lieutenant who had recently joined his regiment, and Miss Kate McKnight had just left school. There was a splendid lot of fellows in teh 2d Artillery. The officers of the regiment from Colonel Bankhead down were feasted and feted, and they probably spent the happiest days of their lives in Buffalo. It was at that time that Lieut. Barry met Miss McKnight, who was an exceedingly pretty and lovely girl, and after a short courtship they were married in the little wooden Episcopal Church that stood where St Paul's Cathedral now stands. It was on a mellow evening, nearly forty years ago=in 1840-that the bridal party walked in to the little church where the good Dr. Shelton was ready to receive them, and to perform the c3eremony. Nearly all of the officers of the regiment were present.
There was the Colonel, and Duncan, and Luther, and Roland, and Shackelford, and Sedgwick, and Blair, and Bob Allen, and Lucius Allen, and Daniels, and Chapman, and many others of the regiment, all of whom I now see before me, just as they looked as the proceeded in full uniform up the aisle, but hwo, alas! are now nearly all dead. From that evening of the wedding in the little chapel, when I slipped in with the other boys to see the wonderful sight, until the beginning of the Mexican war, I never saw many of the officers of the 2d Artillery. But on the morning of Molino del Rey, when the brought in the morally wounded Armstrong and Daniels, and a few days afterwards when Shackelford was brought into the hospital in the City of Mexico where I was lying, Barry's wedding came before me, and I recollected so well how differently they had looked as they stood around the altar to hear pretty Kate McKnight take her marriage vows.
And the same good old Doctor Shelton, who performed the marriage ceremony nearly forty years ago, has within a few weeks, and upon the same spot, officiated at the funeral ceremonies of both General and Mrs. Barry. Two of the Mrs. Barry's pallbearers, the Hon. Asher P. Nichols and Mr. Wm. B. Peck, were, we believe, at her wedding, and followed her remains as they had that of her husband, to the beautiful Forest Lawn Cemetery - a spot so beautiful that one is almost reconciled to death in the thought of sleeping there.
Mrs. Barry had many sincere friends, who are left to mourn for her. She is said to have died of typhoid pneumonia, but Miss Elizabeth Barry, writing to us of her mother's death says, "My dear mother never recovered from the shock of my father's death, and died literally of a broken heart."
Mrs. Barry leaves three daughters, Mrs. Howe, widow of Lieut. Howe of the artillery, whose sad death during the Modoc war is still fresh in our memories, Mrs. MacNutt, wife of Lieut. MacNutt of the Ordnance Corps, and Miss Elizabeth Barry. Two brothers, Messrs. Fredrick and Theodore McKnight, are still residents of Buffalo. The bereaved family may rest assured that they have the heartfelt sympathy of the Army officers and their families. Ebbitt.
(Received from jaeren (#47669688))