Transcribed from the Belmont Dispatch, July 24, 1911.
DEATH OF FORMER BELMONT LADY
Mrs. Barber Gave Parsonage to the Presbyterian Church Here––Family was Well-Known
Mrs. Amzi L Barber was formerly Miss Julia Langdon of Belmont and will be remembered by many of the older residents here. She gave to the Belmont Presbyterian Church, her old home here, which was used for many years as a parsonage, and last year sold by them to Dr. F. E. Brundage. Mrs. Barber's brother, Andrew Langdon built the store now owned by Wm. M Corbin and conducted a hardware store there for a number of years.
The following article concerning Mrs. Barber's death, is taken from a recent issue of the New York American.
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Washington, July 6.– –Mrs. Julia Langdon Barber, widow of Amzi L Barber, known as the “Asphalt King,” died very suddenly in a parlor car of the Congressional Limited, fifteen minutes after the train left Baltimore tonight. Her body was brought here on the train which arrived at 3:45 p.m.
Mrs. Barber, who was 69 years old, but well preserved and active, expired while seated in a chair. Her daughter, Mrs. Charles S Vance, was at the station, here to meet her mother and did not know of Mrs. Barber's death until she was informed that the body had been taken to an undertaker's
This is the second tragedy in the family within a few weeks. On May 21 last Mrs. Le Droit Barber, the beautiful widow of the elder Mrs. Barber's son, sprang from a room of the Belmont, the Barber’s splendid home here, and was seriously injured.
Mrs. Le Droit Barber grasped a flagpole four stories about the ground and clung there until the pole broke.
Her act was ascribed to melancholy and neurasthenia, which began to affect her when her husband died six years ago.
Mrs. L. Droit Barber had recovered; her mother-in-law, who was devoted to her, accompanied her to New York, where she took a White Star steamer for Genoa, today. Her body was taken, finally to Belmont, Clinton and Fourteenth streets, one of the city's show places, the house and grounds occupying two squares. The entrance hall contains $1 million worth of tapestries which were collected by Mrs. Barber, a woman of high artistic taste. The house is filled with antiques and paintings.
Mrs. Barber was Amzi L. Barber's second wife. She was Julia Louise Langdon, daughter of T. Le Droit Langdon, Belmont N.Y.
Her husband, who died in April 1909, bequeathed to her for life the income of an estate estimated at $5,000,000.
Mrs. Barber was a leader of society here. An ardent anti-vivisectionist, she was an officer of the National Humane Society. She devoted part of each day to riding around in her motor car and causing the arrest of drivers who were treating their horses cruelly.
Mrs. Barber was an enthusiast in the cause of woman suffrage, and lead the parade in Washington last year, which bore a petition to Congress from women throughout the nation asking for the voting franchise.
She leaves two daughters, Mrs. Vance, of Washington, and Mrs. Samuel T. Davis of Bridgeport and Fairfield Connecticut. There are two grandchildren, Julia Langdon Barber, eight years old, Le Droit Barber's daughter and Miss Irene Davis, aged fourteen.