Fayette County PA Archives Biographies.....Barton, William  September 13, 1795 - November 6, 1865
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Marta Burns marta43@juno.com October 11, 2024, 3:49 pm

Source: History of Fayette County, L H Everts and Company 1882, page 694
Author: Franklin Ellis

    William Barton, who was born in New Jersey, September 13, 1795, 
of Quaker stock and of English ancestry, came into Fayette county with
his parents at about twelve years of age.  He enjoyed good advantages of
education for the times, and in early life was occupied for some years as
clerk and manager of a furnace in Uniontown.  
    On November 28, 1824, he married Mrs Hannah Collins Foster, born October
28, 1795, widow of John Foster, a captain in the regular army in the war
of 1812 and daughter of Thomas Collins of Uniontown, who was a colonel in
the same war and at one time sheriff of Fayette County, a man of great
business capacity.  
    Soon after marriage Mr Barton settled with his wife on the old Collins
farm which eventually became by inheritance the property of Mrs Barton in
South Union township, where he prosecuted farming all his life, adding to
the farm by the purchase in 1830 of an adjoining tract equal to it in
size.  Mr Barton became a considerable stock raiser withal, and for twenty
years or more ran a distillery, the products of which had great
reputation all along the line of the National Road when that thoroughfare
was at the height of its glory.  
    He was an old line Whig, afterwards a Republican, and took great
interest in national politics, particularly and though confined to his
house mainly for the last eighteen years of his life, he always caused
himself to be carried into town to deposit his vote.  He died November 6,
1865, while the war of the Rebellion can be said to have been hardly
settled, and during that struggle watched its course with intense anxiety,
but with full confidence from the first in the ultimate success of the
cause of the Union.  
    He was a genial man and noted for his thorough integrity in business,
his word being all the "bond" his neighbors needed of him.  He took great
interest in the public schools and was a director for a number of years.
Mr Barton was a great reader and an independent thinker, and was never
attached to any religious organization; in fact, he was distrustful of it
not opposed to such organizations.
    Mr Barton died leaving four children, one daughter and three sons, all
now dead save one son, Mr Joseph Barton, who served as a private in the
First West Virginia Cavalry during the war of the Rebellion, and who owns
the old homestead in which with his family resides his aged mother, an
intelligent woman, still hearty and active, occasionally walking to town
even in the coldest weather, a distance of two miles over a road too
rough at times for horses to travel with safety to limb, and one of the
wretchedly bad roads too common in the county and a disgrace to the
people of Uniontown.  

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2000.

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