Francis Jones Barnard

Francis Jones Barnard (18 February 1829 – 10 July 1889), often known as Frank Barnard Sr., was a prominent British Columbia businessman and Member of Parliament in Canada from 1879 to 1887.

Most famously, Barnard was the founder of the B.X. Express freighting company ("Barnard's Express"), which was the main cartage and passenger services company on the Cariboo Road. His son, Sir Francis Stillman Barnard, often known as Frank Barnard Jr., later became the Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia.

Though born in Quebec City, Barnard was a descendant of another Francis Barnard who settled in Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1642 and was one of that city's selectmen. The family business in Québec City was in hardware, but when his father died when he was twelve it fell upon him to support his mother and siblings.

In 1853 he married Ellen Stillman of Quebec City and in 1855 moved to Toronto, Canada West and started his own business. Unsuccessful in Toronto, he left his wife and young children there and emigrated to British Columbia in the spring of 1859 via the Panama Railway and San Francisco in 3rd class steerage. He arrived in Victoria at one of the peaks of gold rush frenzy in the early colony, and arrived in Yale with only a $5 gold piece in his pocket. He survived his first season there by chopping cordwood and delivering it on his back, and in staking and working a gold claim, and then selling it. He was appointed as the constable of Yale that summer. He was assigned to escort two prisoners to New Westminster and recaptured one at Hope after the prisoner had attempted to murder him with his own revolver after overpowering him.

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