Danford Newton Barney (March 4, 1808 – March 8, 1874) was an American expressman who served as president of Wells Fargo & Company from 1853 to 1866.
Some writers have incorrectly rendered Barney's given name as "Danforth", but his brother Ashbel H. Barney spelled it "Danford" in a notice to Wells Fargo shareholders in 1869, and D.N. Barney himself signed the articles of incorporation of the New York Elevated Railroad in 1871 as "Danford N. Barney".[1]
Barney was born in 1808 at Henderson, New York, the son of John and Sarah (Grow) Barney. He was a descendant of Jacob Barney of Bradenham, Buckinghamshire, England, who settled at Salem, Massachusetts, about 1630. John Barney was a farmer in Jefferson County, New York, when his sons Danford (1808) and Ashbel (1816) were born.
As a young man, Danford Barney went to Sacketts Harbor, New York, where he was cashier in a bank. On October 8, 1833, he married Cynthia Maria Cushman, daughter of Peter Newcomb Cushman and Sally (Kellogg) Cushman. The couple were the parents of three children:
In 1842 Danford Barney and his brother, Ashbel, went to Cleveland, Ohio, and engaged in business as forwarding and commission merchants as Danford N. Barney & Company. The Danford Barneys resided in Cleveland at 24 Public Square and later 169 Euclid Street.
Cynthia Barney died on August 5, 1843. Barney married on January 26, 1847, Azubah Latham, the daughter of William Harris Latham and Azubah (Jenks) Latham of North Thetford, Vermont. Azubah was a sister of Charles F. Latham, later treasurer of Wells Fargo & Company, and a first cousin of Milton Latham, United States Senator from California in 1860-63. Barney and his second wife were the parents of the following children:
Danford Barney moved in 1849 to Buffalo, New York, where he was a commission merchant and proprietor of a bank. When Edwin Barber Morgan resigned as president of Wells Fargo & Company on November 26, 1853, Barney was elected to succeed him. He was also elected to the board of directors,[4] of which he remained a member until 1870.
In 1856 he moved to New York City. Besides serving as president and a director of Wells Fargo, Barney was also a director of John Butterfield's Overland Mail Company, organized in 1857 to provide government mail coach service from Tipton, Missouri, to San Francisco, California, by way of El Paso, Texas, and Yuma, Arizona.[5]
On April 15, 1863, Danford Barney, Benjamin Pierce Cheney and William Fargo were appointed a committee in New York to go to California "in the best interests of the company". Traveling by stage, they spent most of July, all of August, and most of September 1863 in California looking after the company's affairs.[6] Similarly, on February 8, 1865, Barney was asked to visit London "in reference to a financial agency of the California Railroad" (i.e., the Central Pacific Railroad, the western portion of the transcontinental railroad then under construction).[7]
Barney was President of Wells Fargo until the company was merged into the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company on November 1, 1866. The surviving company was thereupon renamed Wells Fargo & Company. Louis McLane was elected president as the two companies made a smooth merger transition.[8]
After the death of her father in 1868, Azubah Barney purchased the Latham family home in North Thetford. After the death of Azubah in 1875, the house passed to her daughter Lucy, who owned it until her death in 1940.
In 1870 Danford Barney retired from the board of directors of Wells Fargo.[9] He was one of the incorporators of the New York Elevated Railroad in 1871.[10]
Danford N. Barney died at the Windsor Hotel in New York City on March 8, 1874. Azubah Barney died December 4, 1875. In her will she left $5,000 to start a library in Thetford named for her father.