DEATH OF MR ARCHIBALD BARE.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 2321, 25 August 1898, Page 45

DEATH OF MR ARCHIBALD BARE.

We regret to have to record the death of another of the fasfedecreasmg band of our earliest settlers in the person of Mr Archibald Barr, first chief postmaster for Otago, who has passed away in the fiftieth year of almost continuous residence in this provincial district. Mr Bariv who was a native of Glasgow, arrived in Otago by the ship Mariner in June, 184-9. Prior to leaving the old country he had been employod in a large wholesale manufacturing house, but after landing in the colony he devoted his attention to' the farming of land in company with his brother. The land he took up was acquired by him under the New Zealand Company's terms of purchase, Mr Barr having brought 'out orders of choice from London. It was at the Halfway Bush that ho selected his suburban lan.d, and there he married; but after some years he sold out and removed to Mew South Wales, where li 9 obtained an appointment as assistant clerk in the Audit Office of the Treasury department in Sydney, .but afterwards exchanged to Murrurimdi, about 200 miles in the interior, where he performed the duties of several public departments, including those of clerk of petty sessions. In 1356 he returned to Dunedin, and here his first wife died. In 1857 he was appointed clerk to the Customs and Post Office in Dunedin, under Mr Logic. Upon the separation of the Postal and Customs department in 1860 Mr Barr was appointed to the charge of the former with tho title of postmaster for Otago. With the discovery of the goldSclds in 1861 an immense increase in the work of the Post Office was experienced — so much so, indeed, that it is -recorded that on one occasion there was such an accumulation of mails in Dunedin that the postmaster for three days and two nights did not leave the office even for meal?, taking his elcet> in snatches upon the piles of newspapers that were heaped upon the fioor. The consequence of the rush was, too, a demand for district post offices and for postal communication, and Mr Barr, deeming it absolutely neeessarv in the interest of the public service that a personal knowledge of the various localities should be obtained by him before the opening of any office or the institution of any mail route, undertook long journeys with that object in view, riding frequently through unoccupied country which was unprovided with the modern conveniences of roads or bridges, and in many cases he acted on his own authority in establishing country post officeß without waiting for the Kanction of the Government. For 31 years Mr Barr held, with great credit to himself, his position as chief postmaster for Otago, and during portion of that time he acted also as Colonial sub-treasurer of tho province of Otago, while he conducted the agency of the Government Lifo Insurance department during the first four years of its existence. In all those long years of service Mr Barr asked for only one holiday, and that was granted him by appointing him mail ageat on the steamer that carried the second outward mail to San Francisco—an office that he found anything but a sinecure. When he retired from the service in 1888 it was with an enviable record of conscientious and faithful work, and he carried with, him into his retirement the best wishes of the officers of his department and of the public generally. Under him some of the officers who have since taken a high position in the colonial service were trained, among them being the present chief secretary of the Postal department. Mr Barr always took a lively interest in. church matters, and he took an active part in the opening both of the old Knox Church and the Moray place Congregaiional Church in each of which he was an office-bearer. He was also closely associated with numerous philanthropic movoments. Mr Barr was twice married, and tho only child of his first marriage is now the widow of the late Fred. R. Wilson, solicitor, of Tapanui. \a 1853 he married the eldest daugh-

ter of the late Mr George Hepburn, another of the earliest settler!*, by which marriage he had one eon and six daughters; ono of the latter dying in infancy, and four being now married.