Barrows was born in Olean, New York on July 30, 1838; he studied at an academy in Randolph, New York, where his father was a pioneering lumberman. Augustus assisted his father in his business until on one of their trips to Cincinnati on a raft, his father lost a leg in an accident. He closed out his business in New York and moved with his family to Pleasant Grove, Minnesota in 1855, and went into farming. Augustus, who had accompanied his family to their new home, "followed various pursuits" for a while. He married Alice B. Duncan in Pleasant Grove on November 16, 1862. Barrows enlisted as a private in the 11th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War and was mustered out as a lieutenant on June 30, 1865. On mustering out, he returned to Wisconsin, settling in Chippewa County.
Public office
Barrows was elected County Treasurer of Chippewa County in 1869 to fill a vacancy, and re-elected for a full term in 1870; and served one term as mayor of Chippewa Falls. In 1872, he ran for the Assembly as a Democrat, losing to incumbent RepublicanAlbert Pound, with 676 votes to Pound's 1205. In 1876, he ran for the Wisconsin State Senate's Eleventh District, losing to incumbent Republican Thomas Scott with 3,700 votes to Scott's 3,925. He became a vigorous adherent of the Greenback movement, becoming known as "one of its ablest and most logical advocates in the state". In 1877, he ran for Chippewa County's sole Assembly seat as an independent Greenback, unseating Democratic incumbent Louis Vincent, who polled only 496 votes to 886 votes for Barrows and 555 for Republican O. R. Dahl. He was chosen as speaker on January 9, 1878, because the Assembly now consisted of 45 Republicans, 41 Democrats, 13 Greenbacks and a socialist: thus, the Greenbacks and socialist had leverage as tie-breakers, since the two major parties held mere pluralities. In 1879, rather than run for re-election, he ran for Congress under a fusion ticket as a Greenback/Democrat in the Eighth District, losing with 11,421 votes to 12,795 for Republican incumbent Thaddeus C. Pound. He was succeeded in the Assembly by Republican former Assemblyman Hector McRae.
Moving to Montana
After losing the Congressional election, Barrows organized a group of colonists who arrived in Martinsdale, Montana, in June 1879. He brought a herd of bloodedcattle with him, and went into stockraising, which he pursued for the rest of his life. Soon after his arrival there, he and Edward P. Allis of Milwaukee partnered to build a large sawmill, and began the manufacture of lumber at Sawmill Gulch in what was then Meagher County, Montana. He homesteaded 160 acres in a place he called "Ubet", also known as "U-Bet" or "U-bet" in what was then Fergus County. He built a stage stop hotel, saloon and general store on the stagecoach route, and moved there himself in 1881, becoming among the first permanent white settlers of the Judith Basin. He died on December 20, 1885 in Ubet, and was buried back in Chippewa Falls in a Masonic ceremony. He left Alice with a family of young children, but she continued to operate the businesses with the aid of her children, eventually increasing the original homestead to an estate of 2,000 acres. The Barrows were the parents of four children: John R.; Mary, who died at two years of age; Olive; and Clarence H. John, who became a lawyer in San Diego, California, later wrote a memoir of his family's life there titled U-Bet: A Greenhorn in Old Montana which was reviewed in The New York Times as "dramatic and colorful."
