The town's name denotes its location on elevated ground north of the Delaware River.

Barryville is named for William T. Barry, postmaster general under President Andrew Jackson.

The Delaware River also served as the conduit for timber cut in the area and rafted to Philadelphia for use in the ship building industry.

In fact, writing in 1899, John Willard Johnston, lawyer, historian, and the town of Highland's first supervisor, predicted a dire future for Barryville.

The lumber of the region being exhausted, the business of canaling declining and now abandoned, it has for the last 25 years been waning, until now it seems to have reached a bottom of hardpan.

Human imagination can hardly reach anything in the future likely to improve it; but it will probably remain indefinitely the small poor place it now is."