{"id":3949,"date":"2025-06-28T11:02:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T15:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/?page_id=3949"},"modified":"2025-07-31T16:32:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T20:32:33","slug":"richard-m-barnes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/exhibitions\/current-exhibitions\/eggscentricity-2\/richard-m-barnes\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard M. Barnes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Magoon Barnes<\/strong> was born in Lacon, Illinois on April 21, 1862, to George O. Barnes, a lawyer (1829-1896) and Mary I. Magoon (1837-1922).<\/p>\n

At the age of 21, Richard completed law school and went to work at his father\u2019s law office as a clerk. He became a member when his father\u2019s partner died in 1885.<\/p>\n

Richard married Hattie Myers (1864-1946) in 1892 and ran the firm alone for several years following his father\u2019s death in 1896 before hiring a cousin for partner. He\u2019s listed in the 1898 Naturalists Directory.<\/p>\n

Richard became a circuit judge in the early 1900\u2019s and purchased The Oologist journal becoming the publisher and editor from April 1909 to December 1941. The journal was established in 1875 and published notes on eggs, the nesting habits of birds and taxidermy for bird enthusiasts. He also wrote many articles during his lifetime and published a book titled \u201cThe American Oologists\u2019 Exchange Price List of North American Birds\u2019 Eggs\u201d in 1922.<\/p>\n

At some point he converted an old church into the R. Magoon Barnes\u2019 Museum of Oology in Lacon, IL. It contained North American bird eggs, skins, nests and mounted specimens. One article also noted a catalog of 25,000 rare prehistoric specimens. Besides collecting eggs himself, he would trade or purchase eggs from other collectors. In 1893, he added 1,600 eggs collected by George Noble of Savannah, GA to his private collection.<\/p>\n

In 1925, Richard deposited his entire egg collection (almost 40,000) in the Chicago Museum of Natural History, now the Field Museum. He was appointed to the staff in 1928.\u00a0When he died in 1945, Richard bequeathed the collection to the museum. Obituaries mention that natural history and ornithology became his hobby at an early age. He began collecting eggs in 1876 at the age of fourteen. As a youth, he witnessed the great flights of the passenger pigeon, now extinct.<\/p>\n

1945 Obituary news Barnes<\/a><\/p>\n

The Pember has in their collection two sets of eggs from R.M. Magoon.<\/p>\n

Sources: Biodiversitylibrary.org, Findagrave.com, Newspapers.com, Ancestry.com, 1945 Chicago Natural History Museum Newsletter<\/span><\/p>\n

\"1903 <\/a>
1903 Marshall_County_Democrat <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Exhibit\" <\/a>
Exhibit <\/div> <\/div>
\"Prothonotary <\/a>
Prothonotary Warbler eggs and nest collected on June 4, 1888 in Lacon, IL <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Egg <\/a>
Egg Data card <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Back <\/a>
Back side of egg card <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"1886 <\/a>
1886 First Article written <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"1888 <\/a>
1888 1st ad regarding warbler eggs <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"1888 <\/a>
1888 1st ad <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"1903 <\/a>
1903 News <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"1912 <\/a>
1912 Golden Eagles Nest-Barnes by Tom Webber <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"1914 <\/a>
1914 ad <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Barnes <\/a>
Barnes Museum <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"1932 <\/a>
1932 by Tom Webber <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Magoon Barnes was born in Lacon, Illinois on April 21, 1862, to George O. Barnes, a lawyer (1829-1896) and Mary I. Magoon (1837-1922). At the age of 21, Richard completed law school and went to work at his father\u2019s …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":3858,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3949","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PaqQSS-11H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3949"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4113,"href":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3949\/revisions\/4113"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepember.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}