James Barker (judge)

Baker was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts to John Vanderburgh, a woolen manufacturer whose American ancestry could be traced back to settlers of Rhode Island in 1663, and Sarah (Apthorp) Barker.

He made many contributions to literature worthy of lasting renown, among them "Shire Town Stories" (1890), being collections of narratives of bench and, bar, and biographical and historical papers.

His love of nature and outdoor life was unbounded; fishing, hunting, tramping, golfing claimed all his leisure moments and few knew so well as he, the untrammeled beauties of his native county, Berkshire.

Judge Barker possessed an analytical mind, eminently judicial, which won for him a long, and honorable career in the high station to which he was called.

He was genial and ever fair-minded, with an attractiveness of manner and speech added to a reserve strength and firmness of character rarely combined.