Francis Barnard was born around 1817 in Ohio. He married Mary M. Waggoner on March 4, 1841, and their daughter Adelaide was born around 1845. They moved to Bloomington, Illinois, in the 1840s, and he worked as a farmer there. By 1850, he owned $3,000 of real estate. A decade later, they owned $6,000 of real estate and $1,500 of personal property. By the early 1880s, he was reportedly “one of the richest and most prominent farmers of [the] region.” He and his wife separated around 1879, and he spent the next few years living with his sister in Dale, Illinois. He died there on June 15, 1883.