Joseph Barss
Joseph Barss (21 February 1776 – 3 August 1824) was a sea captain of the schooner Liverpool Packet and was one of the most successful privateers on the North American Atlantic coast during the War of 1812.
Early life
Born 21 February 1776 in Liverpool, Nova Scotia to the son of sea captain Joseph Barss Sr. and Elizabeth Crowell. Barss' parents had married in 1773. They were one of the first families to settle in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Barss was the second of fourteen children. In 1798 the Barss family built one of the largest homes in Liverpool. The house still stands today and is part of the Lane's Privateer Inn.
Privateer activities
Barss gained experience as a privateer against the French in the 1790s, serving in several privateer vessels, as an officer in the ship Charles Mary Wentworth and in command the privateer schooner Lord Spencer. The schooner sank after striking a reef in the West Indies but Barss and his entire crew survived to be rescued by other Nova Scotian privateer vessels. Barss briefly served as commander of the brig Rover, a noted privateer vessel from Liverpool, Nova Scotia famous for its voyages commanded by Alexander Godfrey, another colonial Nova Scotian privateer.
Joseph Barss (politician)
Joseph Barss (1750 – August 13, 1826) was a mariner, merchant and political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Liverpool township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1799 to 1811.
He was the son of Joseph Barss and Lydia Dean and came to Liverpool, Nova Scotia from New England in 1761. In 1773, he married Elizabeth Crowell. Barss was a justice of the peace and judge in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas. He died in Liverpool.
His son Joseph was a well-known privateer and his sons John and James served as a member of the provincial assembly.
References
Joseph Barss (ice hockey)
Joseph Ernest Barss (February 27, 1892 – January 26, 1971) was an ice hockey player and coach. He was the first head coach of the Michigan Wolverines men's ice hockey team, holding the position from 1922 to 1927. He was later employed as a medical doctor and surgeon in the Chicago area.
Early years
Barss was born in Madras, India (now known as Chennai) in February 1892. His father, John Howard Barss (born Wolfville, Nova Scotia) was ordained in July 1891 and traveled to India as a Baptist missionary. In 1893, while still an infant, Barss returned to Canada with his parents. He traveled with his parents from Liverpool, England, arriving in New York on October 30, 1893. They returned to their home in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where Barss' father operated a grocery store and served as a Baptist minister. Barss was enrolled at Acadia University in Wolfville, receiving his degree in 1912. After graduating from Acadia, Barss played professional hockey for the Montreal Wanderers of the National Hockey Association.
Podcasts:
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by June Tabor
Joseph Cross
by: June TaborThere's word from the café
that the old mans ailin'
His eyes are pailin'
and the weather took his hands
They say the ring on his finger
was shaped from a bone
from some white man in Missouri
that spilled whiskey on his wife
[chorus]
He has traveled in a sacred circle
and he has traveled on a white man's train
He's killed for hunger his buffalo brother
He's killed for anger and a white man's name
His name was Joseph Cross
and he was raised by the mission
Just one of a hundred Indian boys
that wouldn't tie his shoes
He cried the night his grandpa died
and told him in a vision
"Stay close to the ways of the rattlesnake
stay close to the ways of the grizzly."
[repeat chorus]
In the 1919
chill of December
the bear and the rattler
coil sleepin' hardly breathin'
It's a penny to the kitchen boy
to run get sister Lydia
"Now you tell her that old Indian
is sleepin', hardly breathin'."
[repeat chorus]
Someone said it just weren't right
to give him a white man's funeral.
Someone said they'd just as soon as not
float him on down the river
But no one touched the ring
and no one said a thing about his chest
where it looked like a bear had ripped him
and a rattler kissed his cheek.
[repeat chorus]