Middleton P. Barrow
Quick Facts
Biography
Middleton Pope Barrow (August 1, 1839 – December 23, 1903) was a United States Senator from Georgia. Born near Antioch, Georgia in Oglethorpe County, he attended a private academy and graduated from the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia with a Bachelor of Arts in 1859 and from the School of Law in 1860. He was admitted to the bar that year and commenced practice in Athens.
He grew up on his father David C. Barrow's plantation. While possibly never owning slaves himself, his father owned 81 slaves at the time of the 1860 census, while Middleton Barrow was still living at home.
During the Civil War, he entered the Confederate service in 1861 and served throughout the war. He resumed the practice of law in Athens and was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1877.
Barrow was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from 1880 to 1881 and was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 1882 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Benjamin H. Hill, serving from November 15, 1882 to March 3, 1883. He was not a candidate for re-election, and resumed the practice of law in Athens.
From January 6, 1902 until his death, he was a judge of the eastern judicial circuit of Georgia, and died in Savannah, Georgia in December 1903; interment was in a private cemetery on the family plantation in Oglethorpe County.
Pope Barrow was a great-grandson of Wilson Lumpkin, a U.S. Senator and a Governor of Georgia, as well as a great-grandfather of U.S. Representative John Barrow. Pope's younger brother, David Crenshaw Barrow, Jr., served as the chancellor of UGA from 1906 until 1925, and Pope Barrow served as a trustee of the university from 1872 until 1889.