"[4] Catharine [a] Webb Barber was born in Charlemont, a village on the banks of the Deerfield River, in Franklin County, Massachusetts, October 25, 1823.

In 1843, her father died,[c] and Barber, at the advice of her brother, came south, and entered the Lafayette Female Seminary, at Chambers Court House, Alabama.

In 1861, she moved to Newnan, Georgia, and became editor of the Southern Literary Companion, which she continued to edit until its suspension in 1865.

[9] In 1866, she became the editor and proprietor of Miss Barber's Weekly, which she continued till her marriage to John Culbreath Towles (1813-1877), of Lafayette, in 1867.

[7] She published Stories for the Freemason's Fireside (New York, 1860); The Three Golden Links (Cassville, Georgia, 1857); and Poor Claire, or Life Among the Queer (1888).