The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1922-05-04
NOTED MICHIGAN
EDITOR ATTENDS
STATE MEETING
E. w. Barber of jackson and
Crooked Lake viii Soon Be
Ninety-four Years Old
By Frank Kay Anderson

One of the most interesting figures
in Lakeland during the sessions of
the State Horticultural Society was
E. w. Barber of Crooked Lake and Of
Jackson, Michigan, who deserves a
place as one of the foremost of Polk
county boosters.
Mr.. Barber is looking forward to the
celebration within two weeks of his
ninety-fourth birthday, yet remains in
good health and the full possession of
his faculties His total physicians
bills for the last five years amount to
a dollar and one-half, he says.
Mr.. Barber has been connected con-
tinuously with the newspaper bust
ness since he began learning the
printers trade in a Michigan newspa-
per office in 1S47. He was born in
Vermont in 1928. his family removing
to Michigan when he was twelve
years old.
Mr.. Barber largely is self-educated,
Michigan having been a primitive
community during the years of his
boyhood, yet is recognized there as
noteworthy authority upon many sub
jects. He was reading clerk of the
thirty eighth congress, which sat in
1863. He made his first visit to Flor
ida in 1879 and at that time received
notification of his appointment as
third assistant postmaster general I'M
der President Grant The letter of
notification was addressed to him at
Jacksonville, and was his first init
nation of the honor. Mr.. Barber re-
ceived the letter up the river at Bluff
ton where he was camping with a
party, Jacksonville being at that time
a town of about four thousand people,
tourists being little known, and the
movements of strangers readily
traced.
Mr.. Barber owns fine properties at
Crooked Lake, in which he takes
great interest. Two years and half
ago he removed his residence from
Jackson to Crooked Lake, where prev
iously it had been his habit to spend
his winters for a number OF years,
Since that time he has in part relin-
pushed his active control of his news
paper; but still controls its policies
and writes much material from his
Crooked Lake home During the last
several years Mr.. Barber has devoted
considerable space in his paper to
boosting for Florida and more particu-
larly for Polk county. The result of
this has been the acquisition by Polk
county OF a considerable number of
former Michigan families, who are a
distinct asset to the section of the
Ridge where they have settled.
Mr.. BARRIERS paper, the jackson
News, is a most progressive and in
fiIential daily with large circulation
not only in its immediate community
but across large section of the state,
where Mr.. Barber's reputation as a
writer and newspaper man gives him
a position which in good part CORE
spends to the place which Henry Wat
terson during the latter portion of his
life held in the journalism of the
South.
Mr.. Barber says it is one of his re-
grets that he has never learned the
use of the typewriter, all of his copy
being written with pencil, after the
fashion of the earlier days. He says
there is no tonic like the Florida eli
mate; and that largely he is forced
to recognize the advance of years by
the fact he now finds himself increas-
ingly able to recall clearly the events
of seventy and eighty years ago,
while quite likely to forget entirely
some occurrence of the week before.
Like many others, he is strong boos-
ter for the State Horticultural So
ciety. and believes it holds much of
benefit for the future of the peninsula.