Thomas Tilton Barr (1779–1824), merchant, attorney, and public official, was the son of a merchant in Lexington, Kentucky. He helped to run the family business until 1811 and then became a lawyer. During the War of 1812 Barr served as a private and judge advocate general in the Kentucky volunteers. He withdrew his candidacy for the United States House of Representatives in 1816 in favor of Henry Clay. Barr was also a trustee of Transylvania University, 1808–13, and he represented Fayette County in the state House of Representatives, 1817–19 (June Lee Mefford Kinkead, Our Kentucky Pioneer Ancestry [1992], 141; Clay, Papers description begins James F. Hopkins and others, eds., The Papers of Henry Clay, 1959–92, 11 vols. description ends , 1:243n, 525, 2:182n; Robert Peter, History of Fayette County, Kentucky [1882], 65, 431; Robert B. McAfee, History of the Late War in the Western Country [Lexington, 1816], 353; Lexington Western Monitor, 7 June, 2 Aug. 1816; Journal of the House of Representatives, of the Commonwealth of Kentucky [Frankfort, 1815], 218; [Frankfort, 1817], 3; [Frankfort, 1818], 4, 12; Lexington Kentucky Reporter, 29 Nov. 1824).

Barr presumably enclosed in his letter a copy of the constitution of the recently established Kentucky Society for Promoting Agriculture, which listed the officers and their duties; allowed for the payment of premiums for “actual experiments and improvements,” “the best essays written on proposed subjects,” and “the best specimens of Stock” exhibited at society-sponsored fairs; and authorized the election of honorary members, who were asked to “attend our meetings, and assist in the deliberations and other purposes of the Society” (printed broadside in DLC: TJ Papers, 208:37067a; undated).