Back Contact Us
William W. Barcus
Submitted by Robin Lacey
VanderKooi and Bill Moore
William W. Barcus.
A prominent and old-established real estate man of Muskegon. William W. Barcus has been identified
with this city in a successful and public-spirited manner for over thirty
years, and is numbered among those who have been instrumental in helping
promote many projects for the upbuilding and progress of the community.
William W.
Barcus was born in the state of Ohio, on August 17,1837. The ancestry on the paternal side goes back
to James Barcus, a native of Maryland, from which state he moved to
Ohio, where he died. Still further
tracing the ancestry, it is been known there where two brothers of the Barcus
family, who came from England with Lord Baltimore, and became settlers
in the original Province of Maryland.
From those two brothers, all members of the Barcus family in
America have sprung. The maternal
grandfather of Mr. Barcus was William Williams, a native of
Pennsylvania, who lost his life while serving as a soldier in the War of
1812. The Williams family is
also of English stock. William Williams
married Miss Gean Gregory, of an English family. The parents of William W. Barcus were
Daniel and Sarah Jane (Williams) Barcus, both natives of Ohio. The father was born in 1800 and died in
1878, while the mother was born in 1813, and died in 1883. They were married in Ohio in 1836, and in
1844 moved to Pennsylvania until his death. In business he was fairly
successful, and was always esteemed as a useful and influential man of his
community. There were eight children in
the family, and three are now living, the other two being: Benjamin G., who is a carpenter in
Pennsylvania, and H. T. Barcus, who is a saw maker, now in charge
of sawmills in Pennsylvania. The
parents belong to the Methodist Episcopal church, and the father was a staunch
Republican, from the beginning of that party.
William W.
Barcus had a common school education in the state of Pennsylvania,
completed with a course in a commercial college at Pittsburgh in 1861. He then started out in life without capital,
and through his energy and individual ability has made his success. His first work was as a bookkeeper, and he
was employed in that vocation for a long period of years. Finally he was promoted to the place of
manager for his company, lived some years in New York City, and then
represented the firm in Chicago. In
1881, he moved to Muskegon, where he joined his brothers in the manufacturing
of circular saws, under the firm name of Barcus Brothers. That was a successful establishment, and did
a large business especially during the high-tide of the lumber mill industry.
In 1894, Mr. Barcus established a real estate and insurance office, and
for almost twenty years has been continuously and successfully indentified with
that line of enterprise. He has handled
large quantities of real estate in the city and vicinity, and represents some
of the leading insurance companies. A
special feature of his business is the making of real estate loans.
In 1863,
Mr. Barcus married Miss E. J. Jaquette, a daughter of Nathaniel Jaquette,
a native of Delaware, where the Jaquette settled in an early day. Nathaniel moved from his native state to
Pennsylvania, where he died. By trade
he was a shoemaker. Mr. and Mrs. Barcus
had only one child, Clarke J., who died at the age of twenty-eight. The family attend worship at the Methodist
Episcopal church, and for more than forty years, Mr. Barcus has been
closely affiliated with the Masonic Order being a past master of his
lodge. His politics is Republican.
Source: History of Michigan by Charles Moore,
1915 pages 1677-1678