Barclay was born on October 5, 1848, in NewtownonLong Island.[2] He was the third child and second son of four children born to Henry Barclay (1794–1863) and Sarah Ann Moore (1809–1873).[3] His siblings were Henry Anthony Barclay (1844–1905),[4] Fannie Barclay (1846–1922), and Sackett Moore Barclay (1850–1918).[3][5]
His maternal grandfather was Daniel Sackett Moore.[3] His paternal great oncle is Thomas Henry Barclay (1753–1830).
Barclay attended Columbia University.[1] He is recorded as matriculating with the class of 1870, but it is unsure if he finished the degree.[6] He was president of the Barclay Realty Company which was located at 299 Broadway in Manhattan.[7] The company managed his family's extensive real estate holdings, generally located near Barclay Street, named for his ancestors.[1]
In 1892, both Barclay and his wife Olivia were included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.[8] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.[9]
Barclay was married to Olivia Mott Bell (1855–1894).[10] She was the daughter of Isaac Bell and Adelaide (née Mott) Bell,[11] and the sister of Isaac Bell Jr. (1846–1889), the businessman and diplomat.[12] Before her death, they were the parents of one daughter:[2]
After the death of his first wife in 1894, he married Priscilla Palmer Dixon (1851–1924),[20] the widow of Thomas Chalmers Sloane (1847–1890) of the W. & J. Sloane Company, on April 16, 1896, at her home on West 51st Street in Manhattan.[2] She was the daughter of Courtlandt Palmer Dixon (1817–1883) and Hannah Elizabeth (née Williams) Dixon (1817–1888), a cousin of U.S. Representative and Senator Nathan F. Dixon III, a niece of Nathan F. Dixon II, and a granddaughter of U.S. Senator Nathan Fellows Dixon.[20]
Barclay died at his home, 15 West 48th Street in New York on July 2, 1925.[21] He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.[1]
^"Form". Form: An Illustrated Weekly Pub. Every Sat. In the Interests of American Society at Home and Abroad. I (1): 13. October 25, 1913. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
