He worked as president of the Bank of Pennsylvania and was one of the founders of the Insurance Company of North America.

[2] Once arriving in Philadelphia, Barclay obtained work as a shipping merchant, and served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

[3] He was appointed a justice of the peace in 1782 and rose to President Judge of the Courts of Bucks County in 1789.

He married his second wife, Mary Searle, at Christ Church in the present-day Old City section of Philadelphia on December 11, 1781, and they had five children.

[2] He died in Philadelphia in 1824 and is interred in the Neshaminy Church Cemetery in Warwick Township, Pennsylvania.