Meeting members of old Mendocino families is always a delight at the Kelley House. Previous residents, who are often only names and dates on our index cards, come alive when their descendants return to the museum to learn more about their ancestry. Theresa Vanni Motroni and her sister, Lisa Vanni Melin, visited back in 2012 in order to get a fuller picture of their great-great-grandparents, John and Amelia Barry. Theresa had begun her search with the “Ancestry.com” database and learned that John and his brother Richard had left Norkoping, Sweden around 1859 and had made it as far as Livingston, Illinois by 1860, where they were working as farm laborers.
Jarvis-Nichols Building and the Barry Building on Main Street in Mendocino, 1884-1893. The three-story Barry building seen on the right was originally the home and business of John Barry and his barbershop. (Kelley House Photographs)
Sometime during the next ten years, John Barry went west and settled in Mendocino, but there the tracks got a little cold. The Kelley House was able to find much more detail. An entry in the Presbyterian Church Register of Mendocino for February 8, 1870, notes that John A. Barry married Amelia Laurell, also a Swedish immigrant and resident of Mendocino. The 1870 United States Federal Census for Big River Township of Mendocino shows John, age 31, working as a cook, and Amelia, age 25, keeping house. By 1880, John was a barber with his own business and the Barry family had grown: living with John and Amelia were Ernest, age 8; Lewis, age 6; Sophia, age 5; and Eva, age 2. Their last daughter, Alice, was born in 1882.
In 1868, the small Barry building was built east of the Jarvis-Nichols building [now Gallery Bookshop] on Main Street for John’s barbering business. A second story was added in 1873 to provide living quarters for their growing family. At some point in the next few years, a third story was added. Barry died in 1884 at the age of 45, at which time W.T. Wilson purchased the building so he could expand his hotel business from the building just west of Barry’s. He opened a “high-class restaurant” there, The Oyster and Coffee Saloon, where he promised “Meals at all hours of day or night. Fresh Eastern oysters always on hand. Choice wines, liquors and cigars,” according to the July 5, 1884 Beacon.
George Switzer purchased the building in 1893 and moved it to its present location on the corner of Howard and Albion streets. It was transported by horses pulling the house over logs, which were used as rollers. Unfortunately, there are no photos of that undertaking! The Barry building is now the Headlands Inn, a bed and breakfast. The structure’s removal left a gap between buildings on Main Street [now a parklet where visitors can sit and look at the ocean while their family members shop in Gallery Bookshop].
After John Barry died, Amelia married John Nelson and had another son, Justin Nelson. When they grew up, Chester Barry and his half-brother Justin owned and operated the Nelson and Barry Bottling Works, also known as Ocean View Bottling Works, in Brewery Gulch. They also opened a pool room in 1912 [in J. D. Johnson’s building on the northeast corner of Lansing and Ukiah Streets, now Mendocino Gems].
The Vanni sisters trace their lineage through John and Amelia’s youngest daughter, Alice. She was born above the barber shop and was only two years old when her father passed away. The Vannis were thrilled to discover an interview (by Dorothy Bear and Beth Stebbins) with Jack Barry Dunne, Alice’s son. Jack recalled visiting Mendocino during the summers of 1912-1916 and staying with his grandmother, Amelia, in the house built for her [by Perley Maxwell] in 1913. It is located on the corner of Evergreen and Main streets and is now part of the Alegria Inn.
Amelia died in 1918. She, John Barry, Chester Barry, and Justin Nelson are all buried in the Barry family plot in Evergreen Cemetery in Mendocino.
— Excerpted and annotated from the “Kelley House Newsletter,” Summer, 2012.
The Kelley House Museum is open from 11AM to 3PM Friday through Sunday. Come by to see our current exhibit on the Northern Pomo. Walking Tours of Mendocino are available throughout the week; the cost is $25. Visit the Kelley House Event Calendar for a Walking Tour schedule.