BARNES, NED EASTMAN

BARNES, NED EASTMAN (1866–1950). Ned Eastman Barnes, a black inventor, was born in January 1866 in Waller County, Texas. He attended public schools and then moved to Willis, where he acquired a farm and joined the Farmers' Improvement Society. He then turned to invention and had an office in Houston by 1915. He developed a brace to maintain the distance between train tracks, an electric projector for display of railroad arrival and departure times, and several other items of railway equipment. He was a Mason and Knight of Pythias and became a lay leader in his Baptist congregation. Barnes married Ada Barnes in the 1880s, and they had three sons who reached adulthood, as well as an adopted daughter. He died in Montgomery County on November 14, 1950.