This is a transcription of the Alvina (Barney) Edgerly biography from New Hampshire Women: A Collection of Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Daughters and Residents of the Granite State, Who are Worthy Representatives of their Sex in the Various Walks and Conditions of Life, The New Hampshire Publishing Co., Concord, NH, 1895, page 89.
Alvina (Barney) Edgerly
AMONG the women of New Hampshire whose lives and characters are deserving of remembrance and a place in the memorial annals of the state was Alvina Barney, wife of Colonel M. V. B. Edgerly. Mrs. Edgerly was descended from two of the oldest and best known families in the state-—the Barney’s and Prescotts-—and was the daughter of Jedediah Barney and Eliza Prescott. She was born in Grafton in February, 1834. Her marriage to Colonel Edgerly took place in March, 1854, and her home was in New Hampshire until 1881, when the family removed to Boston; in 1885 they went to Springfield, Mass., which was her home up to the time of her death. This occurred June 9, 1894, at the summer home of the family at Beverly Farms, Mass. Mrs. Edgerly was a woman of notable character and refinement, and of sweet and patient disposition. These attributes were strikingly exemplified in her cheerful endurance of an illness which covered nearly fifteen years of her life, and finally brought it to a close. Although restricted, from this cause, in her social life, Mrs. Edgerly had a large circle of friends who delighted in her society and friendship; she was a woman of fine presence and charming conversational gifts, a wide general reader, and a thoughtful critic of literature and of passing events, and her intelligent criticisms and comments were most entertaining and instructive. She was a devoted member of the Episcopal church for many years, and it may be truthfully said that her life was a conscientious striving after a religious ideal which was well nigh attained. Mrs. Edgerly left, besides her husband (since deceased) a son and daughter, Clinton J. Edgerly and Miss Mabel C. Edgerly.