Born at "Fleetwood" near Brandy Station, Virginia, Barbour attended private schools as a child, then the College of William and Mary, from which he graduated in 1808.
[5] Barbour was elected a Crawford Republican and Jacksonian to the United States House of Representatives in 1822, serving from 1823 to 1833, when he was succeeded by fellow Whig John M. Patton of Fredericksburg, Virginia.
[7] Three years later his son John S. Barbour Jr. was elected to represent Culpeper County in the Virginia House of Delegates, continuing his father's tradition.
His namesake J. S. B. Thompson married his daughter Eliza Byrne Barbour in 1850, worked for various railroads (including the Southern Railway),[10] and continued to exercise political influence (helping Thomas S. Martin win election as U.S.
His grandson John Strode Barbour became a prominent lawyer, newspaper editor and Culpeper's mayor (although he later moved to Fairfax County, Virginia).