Royal Barney (1808-1890)


 *  Zion's Camp Veteran
 * Original Member - LDS 1st Quorum of Seventy

Biography
Royal Barney, Jr, a member of Zion's Camp... the third of six children born to Royal Barney and his wife and third cousin Rachel Marsh Barney Barney. Edson is also the brother of Royal (Alonzo) Barney who shared with him several life achievements and who also became a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Edson migrated to Amherst, Ohio, with his parents when a young man and was baptized by Simeon Carter in May, 1831, at that place.

Zions Camp Participant
One of the most interesting episodes in the early history of LDS Church was the march of Zion's Camp (1834). The members of the Church in Missouri were being persecuted, and the Prophet Joseph made it a matter of prayer and received a revelation on February 24, 1834. The Lord instructed the Prophet to assemble at least one hundred young and middle-aged men and to go to the land of Zion, or Missouri. (See | D&C 130:19–34.)

Zion’s Camp, a group of approximately one hundred and fifty men, gathered at Kirtland, Ohio, in the spring of 1834 and marched to Jackson County, Missouri. By the time they reached Missouri, the camp had increased to approximately two hundred men.

He first saw the Prophet Joseph. Smith at a conference held in January, 1832 and went to Missouri as a member of Zion's Camp in 1834, In 1835 he was ordained a Seventy and called to the First Quorum of the Seventy.

Royal was baptized as a young man for by 1834, he accompanied his brother Edson Barney (1806-1905) and the Prophet Joseph Smith (1805-1844) on Zions Camp, an expedition to provide relief to hose saints who were suffering persecution in Missouri. He must have served with faithfulness and honor for he was selected the following year in 1835 to be ordained a Seventy and called to the First Quorum of the Seventy. This call, of course, places him in the roster of General Authorities. Brother Andrew Jensen, writing in Church Chronology, states that he was ordained under the hands of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon.

Oliver Cowdery (1806-1850) writing in the Messenger and Advocate (Sept. 1836) included Elder Royal Barney in a list of "the names of Ministers of the Gospel belonging to the church of the Latter Day Saints, whose licenses were recorded, the last quarter, in the License Records, in Kirtland, Ohio,"

Troubles in Ohio
He was sued by one "Henry Skinner in 1837 on a note made by them to Joseph Smith and negotiated by him to Skinner. Skinner obtained a default judgment by confession (with no actual appearance by the defendants), after which the Barneys and Angell appeared and sought to set aside the judgment on the ground that the note was given for notes of the "Kirtland Safety Anti-Banking Society," which were alleged by Paine, on behalf of the defendants, to have been illegal and without value. This defense failed in June 1837, and Skinner recovered a judgment against the Barneys and Angell on the note." (Court of Common Pleas Record Book U, p. 99, Geauga County, Ohio.)

We find no record of Elder Barney through the years of the Missouri Persecutions nor the Nauvoo era. But he and his family did join in the trek west with the saints arriving in Utah in 1852. Andrew Jenson writing in Church Chronology, records: "June 9, 1890 (Monday) Father Royal Barney died in Salt Lake City.