[1] The reading of a Catholic book opened up for him the issue of the validity of Anglican orders, by impugning Archbishop Parker's consecration.
[2] His son, Virgil Horace Barber, who was a minister in charge of an Episcopal academy at Fairfield, near Utica, New York, read John Milner's "End of Controversy" after a visit to Claremont.
The following year Virgil returned to Claremont from New York, taking with him Father Charles Ffrench, a Dominican who was officiating there at St. Peter's church.
Two pamphlets, printed at Washington, "Catholic Worship and Piety Explained and Recommended in Sundry Letters to a Very Dear Friend and Others" (1821), and "History of My Own Times", give details of his life and convictions.
In "History of My Own Times" (Washington, 1827) he states that his father and mother were Congregational Dissenters, of strict Puritan principles, and he continued in that sect until his twenty-seventh year, when he joined the Episcopalians.