[3][4] Born at Yarmouth, Maine, Barrows graduated from Bowdoin College in 1839 and read law in Portland with General Samuel Fessenden, a relative, and afterwards with Judge Tenney in Norridgewock, to gain admission to the bar in 1842.
[1][2][5] He commenced the practice of law in Brunswick, Maine, which remained his home for the rest of his life.
[2] He served eight years as Judge of Probate for Cumberland County, Maine, being appointed about 1854,[1] and then elected in 1856 and reelected in 1860.
[1] On March 27, 1863, Governor Abner Coburn appointed Barrows to a seat on the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine vacated by the resignation of Judge Edward Fox.
[1] Barrows died at his home in Brunswick at the age of 65, having been in ill health for over a year, and having been unconscious for the week before his death.