From collection Member List
EDUCATION: Barnett matriculated at The University of Georgia in 1872. He served as treasurer, secretary and president of the Kappa Deuteron Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta; he also served as Legate to the Chapter when it was re-chartered in 1884. Records are difficult to decipher, but he may have been a delegate to Phi Gamma Delta’s 25th anniversary 1873 national convention in New York City, April 29 - May 1. Barnett was a member of The University of Georgia Class of 1874.
Brother Barnett was the driving force behind an attempt to resurrect the chapter in 1883 after chapter had failed to survive the 1874 ban on fraternities by The University. Unfortunately, his efforts to re-establish the chapter and extend possible membership to seven students he had recruited were denied on March 5, 1883 by the Grand Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta on their belief that Barnett - in his enthusiasm to return Kappa Deuteron to The University of Georgia - may have already initiated or divulged the secrets of the Fraternity to the prospective members. A year later, however, Barnett was named to be the Legate for the re-establishment of the Chapter on August 26, 1884.
Osborne Stone Barnett’s grandfather, Samuel Barnett, Sr., was president of the Bank of Georgia in Washington, Georgia, where, on May 5, 1865, “ ... the last cabinet meeting of the Confederate government was held [to dissolve the Confederacy.] C.S.A. President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet assembled there while making flight through Georgia at the close of the Civil War,” according to the book “A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians,” by Lucian Lamar Knight, v. 5, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York, 1917, p. 2555 and other accounts. Davis fled Washington, Georgia but was soon afterwards captured in Irwinton, Georgia on May 10, 1865. Traveling with Davis from Richmond through Georgia was the bulk of the Confederate Treasury, some say as much as $10 million in current value and believed to be hidden somewhere in Wilkes County [but yet undiscovered. The Clint Eastwood movie classic, “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,” revolves around the search for missing Confederate gold.
Brother Barnett’s father, Samuel, a lawyer and Trustee of The University of Georgia, was at one time the Railroad Commissioner for the State of Georgia.
Brother Barnett had a brother, Edward Augustus Barnett who married Mary Austin Hill, a daughter of Wylie Pope Hill and Jane James Austin and a sister of Kappa Deuteron members Burwell Meriwether Hill and John James Hill. Another brother of Osborne Stone, Samuel Barnett III, graduated from The University of Georgia in 1869 [before the establishment of Phi Gamma Delta at Georgia - jtf] was in 1878 appointed adjunct professor of mathematics at The University, was a successful attorney in Atlanta and an early member of the Chi Phi fraternity.
CAREER: Brother Barnett taught school, was a farmer and later a brick manufacturer in Wilkes County, Georgia. “Washington-Wilkes,” a publication of the Writers’ Program of the WPA of Georgia, published by the University of Georgia Press, 1941, p. 68 noted:
“Although the early years of the 1890s were characterized principally by the slow growth of industries established since Reconstruction, the later years showed some commercial expansion in new enterprises … In [1899], O. S. Barnett, a prominent brick manufacturer, handled a single order for a million brick, the largest yet made here.”
Barnett was also a member of the Wilkes County Board of Education, Washington, Georgia and served as secretary-treasurer for the first board of the Washington-Wilkes library - the first free public library in Georgia when it opened in 1889.
Brother Barnett was the driving force behind an attempt to resurrect the chapter in 1883 after chapter had failed to survive the 1874 ban on fraternities by The University. Unfortunately, his efforts to re-establish the chapter and extend possible membership to seven students he had recruited were denied on March 5, 1883 by the Grand Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta on their belief that Barnett - in his enthusiasm to return Kappa Deuteron to The University of Georgia - may have already initiated or divulged the secrets of the Fraternity to the prospective members. A year later, however, Barnett was named to be the Legate for the re-establishment of the Chapter on August 26, 1884.
Osborne Stone Barnett’s grandfather, Samuel Barnett, Sr., was president of the Bank of Georgia in Washington, Georgia, where, on May 5, 1865, “ ... the last cabinet meeting of the Confederate government was held [to dissolve the Confederacy.] C.S.A. President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet assembled there while making flight through Georgia at the close of the Civil War,” according to the book “A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians,” by Lucian Lamar Knight, v. 5, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York, 1917, p. 2555 and other accounts. Davis fled Washington, Georgia but was soon afterwards captured in Irwinton, Georgia on May 10, 1865. Traveling with Davis from Richmond through Georgia was the bulk of the Confederate Treasury, some say as much as $10 million in current value and believed to be hidden somewhere in Wilkes County [but yet undiscovered. The Clint Eastwood movie classic, “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,” revolves around the search for missing Confederate gold.
Brother Barnett’s father, Samuel, a lawyer and Trustee of The University of Georgia, was at one time the Railroad Commissioner for the State of Georgia.
Brother Barnett had a brother, Edward Augustus Barnett who married Mary Austin Hill, a daughter of Wylie Pope Hill and Jane James Austin and a sister of Kappa Deuteron members Burwell Meriwether Hill and John James Hill. Another brother of Osborne Stone, Samuel Barnett III, graduated from The University of Georgia in 1869 [before the establishment of Phi Gamma Delta at Georgia - jtf] was in 1878 appointed adjunct professor of mathematics at The University, was a successful attorney in Atlanta and an early member of the Chi Phi fraternity.
CAREER: Brother Barnett taught school, was a farmer and later a brick manufacturer in Wilkes County, Georgia. “Washington-Wilkes,” a publication of the Writers’ Program of the WPA of Georgia, published by the University of Georgia Press, 1941, p. 68 noted:
“Although the early years of the 1890s were characterized principally by the slow growth of industries established since Reconstruction, the later years showed some commercial expansion in new enterprises … In [1899], O. S. Barnett, a prominent brick manufacturer, handled a single order for a million brick, the largest yet made here.”
Barnett was also a member of the Wilkes County Board of Education, Washington, Georgia and served as secretary-treasurer for the first board of the Washington-Wilkes library - the first free public library in Georgia when it opened in 1889.
