William Morris Barker served as the Episcopal Bishop of Olympia, Washington, from 1894 to until his death in 1901. Born in Pennsylvania in 1854, he was the nephew of Benjamin Wistar Morris (1819-1906), pioneer Oregon churchman and founder of Portland's Bishop Scott Academy and Good Samaritan Hospital. Barker's parents were George R. Barker (1823-1880), principal of the Collegiate Institute of Germantown, Pennsylvania, and Anna Ellis Morris Barker (1827-1909). William Morris Barker was educated at Berkeley Divinity School in Middletown, Connecticut (now part of Yale University), served as the rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Duluth, Minnesota, and in 1893 was appointed Bishop of Western Colorado. The following year he became Missionary Bishop of Olympia, Washington. He suffered from heart disease most of his life and died suddenly in 1901 at the age of 46.
In 1892 William Morris Barker married Laura Pindell Adair (1854-1935). She was a native of Astoria, Oregon and the daughter of pioneers John Adair (1808-1888) and Mary Ann Dickinson Adair (1816-1893). John Adair came to Oregon with his family in 1849 and served as the first U.S. inspector of customs at Astoria. His daughter Laura Pindell Adair Barker moved to Portland after her husband's death in 1901, and there she raised her two daughters in a house at 3407 NW Thurman Street. Her daughter Anna Ellis Barker (1894-1967) married Alfred F. Parker, an insurance agent in Portland, and they lived in the Thurman Street house until 1944.
From the guide to the Barker-Adair family papers, 1762-1967, 1847-1933, (Oregon Historical Society)
