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Watertown Daily Times. Sat.. July 3. 1976 Page B-63 Abe's Proclamation Aide Hiram Barney, born in 1811 at Henderson, went on to become a prominent New York City lawyer, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln's assistant in the drafting of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the collector of the port of New York. His niece, Marie Louise Barney Shew Houghton, daughter of Dr. Lowery Barney, became the benefactress of author Edgar Allen Poe, caring for him at her New York City home when he was ill and influencing him to attempt some new works. Hiram Barney was the descendant of Jacob Barney, who came from England to Salem, Mass., in 1634 after Jacob's father had disinherited him for becoming a Baptist. The first of the Barney family to reach Jefferson County was Dr. Daniel Barney who about 1800 became the second physician to settle in the Henderson section. One of Daniel's sons. Dr. Lowery Barney, was once president of the New York State Medical Society and in 1851 treated Major Thomas J. Jackson � who was to become the famed Confederate general "Stonewall" Jackson. Hiram Barney was Dr. Lowery Barney's youngest brother. Hiram attended Belleville Academy, received a law degree from Union College, and later became a prominent member of the New York bar. He married twice. His first wife was Susan Tappan; his second was Miss Harriett E. Kilbourne. Hiram's and Harriet's son, Hiram Barney, Jr., attained fame as a lawyer of international affairs. Hiram Barney Sr. , built a beautiful home at Spuyten Duyvil, then a fashionable residential district of old New York. He was well known to Abraham Lincoln and so closely associated with those administering affairs during the Civil War that he was called upon to assist in drafting the Emancipation Proclamation. He was appointed to the office of the collector of the port of New York under Lincoln's administration. Among the famous visitors at Barney's home were Salmon P. Chase, secretary of the treasury in the Lincoln cabinet; Chase's daughter,  Mrs. William Sprague, whose husband was governor of Rhode Island; James G. Blaine, secretary of state under Garfield, and Cushman K. Davis, one-time senator from Minnesota and also a Henderson native.