OF DKNISON UNIVERSITY 67 



away. We wish only sucli to attend as are desirous to malce rapid im- 

 l)rovement and determined to a\>\)\y themselves closely to study." 



Mr. Barney had taken the Seminary for five years, and at the ex- 

 ])iration of this period decided again to go into business. He formed a 

 ])artnership with Mr. Ebenezer Thresher, and after careful consideration 

 they decided to engage in the manufacture of railroad cars. For the 

 first year, however, Mr. Barney was a silent partner, continuing his 

 work at the head of the Seminary that long at the urgent request of the 

 trustees. Mr. Barney and Mr. Thresher put in $5,000 each at the be- 

 ginning of their manufacturing partnership, and the business prospered 

 from the start, their cars obtaining a reputation for excellent workman- 

 ship and material. In 1854, Mr. Thresher withdrew, because of ill- 

 health, and was succeeded in the firm by Mr. Caleb Parker, of Massa- 

 chusetts. The firm suffered temporarily from the financial panic of 

 1857, but was on too solid a footing to receive permanent harm. Mr. 

 Parker retired from the business in 1864, and was succeeded by Mr. 

 Preserved Smith. In 1867 the firm was incorporated under its present 

 name " The Barney and Smith Manufacturing Company, of Dayton, 

 Ohio," and its history has been one of safe and steady progress ever 

 since. A description of the works at the present time would hardly 

 be called for by the nature of this sketch, but perhaps it will not mislead 

 to reprint a description written soon after Mr. Barney's death, remind- 

 tng the reader that the business has made during the seventeen years 

 intervening just such progress as might have been expected from the 

 foundation which Mr. Barney had laid : 



"The visitor to the works as they are at the present time (1881) 

 cannot fail to be impressed by their extent and the amount of painstak- 

 ng labor which is there employed. Every kind of car, from the com- 

 mon platform to the most luxurious drawing room or sleeper, is turned 

 out by skillful workmen, and the rapidity with which large contracts 

 can be filled has often occasioned surprise. The blacksmith shop with 

 its many forges; the large machine shop, with its complicated and 

 beautiful appliances for working iron economically ; the foundry, that 

 can turn out one hundred and forty wheels a day ; the two buildings of 

 fine machinery for cabinetwork; the separate shops for putting to- 

 gether the trucks, the freight cars, the passenger cars, or for painting 

 them all filled with work in different stages of progress, and populous 

 with men laboring together with exact system and precision — form a 

 little world of industry and of wonderful interest to a thoughtful mind. 



