Rev. Joshua Barton

A Patriot of the American Revolution for NORTH CAROLINA. DAR Ancestor #  A007110 

Record states that all of his children, except Elizabeth, remained in VA when their father moved to that part of Carolina which was to be TN. Sold Swearing CK land Jan 1760 moved to Blackwater, Franklin, VA. His property was sold April 19, 1774. Killed by Shawnee Indians near Boonesboro, KY with son Jacob, son Joab was captured and raised by the Shawnee.

One research project, in error, stated that Joshua was a descendent of the Mass. Bartons, originally coming from England. This was disproved and the genealogy of the Barton Family Organization - and Ashbly T. Gibbons is accepted as Joshua's line of descent - his parents coming from Ireland as Quakers.

(Note: Previous DAR records incorrectly state Joshua's parentage.)

1. 367621, 317494, 441131, 225381, 268963, 426444.

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from http://hillbillymfa.wordpress.com/tag/family-history :

We eat at the Arkansas Burger Company here in Little Rock pretty regularly. They make a nice veggie burger and they have fried pies on the menu. I love fried pies the way I love chocolate gravy and biscuits. All my comfort food involves sugar and fat and lots and lots of butter.

One day we were standing at the counter and my darling fiancee pointed out a sign hanging prominently on the kitchen wall: DAR Arkansas. “Daughters of the American Revolution, look. I bet you could get in, with all your relatives that lived in Virginia.”

Of course this started a research tangent. First, I had to figure out exactly what benefit DAR might have for me, other than some kind of antiquated social bragging rights. But namely, I wanted to know if he was right. Can I definitely prove that one of my direct ancestors supported the American Revolution?

This turned out to be a relatively easy task, thanks to a little time-line review and to the very fortunate fact that my Grandfather Joshua Barton, son of Isaac and Sarah Barton, lived on the Watauga River, in what is now eastern Tennessee in 1775. Joshua had just lost the mother of his seven children, Susan Dodd. Not long after her death, he married Jane Dubart in his native Maryland, where he’d moved with his mother and her second husband. Joshua moved the family to what is sometimes called the “Republic of Watauga.”

In 1772, the residents of the Watauga Valley formed what some call the “first declaration of independence.” Technically outside British colonial boundaries in Cherokee territory, the all-white settlement set up their own government, which they ran until 1776. That year, the Association formed a committee which resolved to “adhere strictly to the rules and orders of the Continental Congress” and asked for the state of North Carolina to “annex” them so they could offer military help “in defence of the common cause.”

Several members of the committee and other local residents signed the Petition to North Carolina, publicly declaring their sympathies in the Revolutionary War. Near the bottom of the document is the name “Joshua Barten, Sr.” There is a misspelling here, but he is careful to mark himself out from his son, Joshua Barton, Jr. Along with the family’s long tradition of his having lived in the area during the time, convinces me that the Watauga Petition’s Joshua Barten, sr. and my Grandfather Joshua Barton are the same person.

Joshua, like his own father, wasn’t afraid to confront the wilderness. I don’t think that most Americans living today can really imagine the kind of courage and fortitude it must have taken for anyone to get on a ship heading for America during the 17th century. There was little hope they would ever see their relatives again, and there was a better than average chance they might end up dead at a relatively young age. That’s what happened to Isaac, who died in 1721. He was just 36 years old.

Joshua outlived his father by a few years, but he spent that time repeating Isaac’s determination. Moving to Watauga, at that time, was like moving to the arctic circle might be to us today. It was beyond the edge of all civilization. He kept pushing into the wilderness right up to his death. He died in 1776 or 1777 after taking over land in Kentucky from the Shawnee. He was killed by Shawnee helping to defend a fort near Boonesboro, Ky.

When I went to Mississippi last year to do some research, I discovered a family history in a local library that claims that Joshua’s son, Joab, survived the Indian attack, but was abducted by the Shawnee. According to the story, he grew up with the Shawnee and lived with them until his sister moved to Missouri. The legend claims that via some odd connection with Daniel Boone, Joab Barton discovered his sister and left the Shawnee to live with her.

I never went ahead with my application to the Daughters of the American Revolution. I’m not sure my delay is as much out of laziness as I later told my fiancee, when he asked about it.

I’m tempered by the fact that every time I read the story of Grandfather Joshua Barton, I am struck that his dedication to facing the wilderness also meant he was committed to fighting and killing Native Americans. He was an active participant in their dislocation.

Gathering these stories, for me, means I have to be honest about the history. I’m proud of my ancestors’ penchant toward the unorthodox and revolutionary. It is the one trait I think I can trace through most of the Isaac Barton family history, a trait that appears in the narrative over and over again. But I’m not so proud that I want to participate in any “historical whitewashing.” I’m not sure what a membership in the DAR would say about my stance.

- and -

I’m back on the family history thread here, for those of you who are interested.

Like I said in a previous post, the family history research I’ve been doing had a leg-up from the beginning. The Barton side of my family kept great records going back to the 1680’s, when my grandfather Isaac was born in Killaloe, Ireland.

The only thing we know about Grandfather Isaac and his wife, Sarah, was that they were Quakers, they married in 1705, and they left Ireland for Pennsylvania in 1714. We have some records of Isaac’s father’s name, but no information on whether or not the family is native Irish or English. I’ve always known that the Quakers in Ireland had to have been outsiders, to say the very least. To be native Irish and convert to Quakerism, which some certainly did, would mean a willingness to live completely outside the norms of society at the time. By and large, the native Irish were catholic. The protestant English had sent a good many folks into Ireland at various times to set up settlements, and some Quakers moved from England to Ireland, trying to escape religious persecution at the hand of various other protestant groups. In general, though, being native Irish meant that you were not likely to convert to Quakerism on a whim. Besides that, there were very few Irish converts in the first place. It was much more likely our line had some connection to England.

I assumed, then, that the Bartons must be related to the Lancashire Bartons. There were dozens of men and women who share a surname with us who were jailed for Quaker activities in the Lancashire area during this time period. The problem was, there was nothing in the family record about Isaac’s parents. Since Isaac was born in the mid 1680’s, I assumed that his parents must have been early Quaker converts.

I pursued my research under that assumption for a long time until I contacted the main records repository for the Irish Quakers. The records of Isaac’s parents are not just missing from our family history, they simply don’t exist.

This was curious. For one thing, the Quakers seem to keep very complete records. It doesn’t make sense that there would be no information on his parents if they were part of the same Friends’ “meeting.” I wasn’t sure why Isaac’s meeting would keep such clear records, seamless records in fact (for they are duly documented on two continents), of his comings and goings and offer no mention of his parents’ names. I know there are probably circumstances I couldn’t imagine that would account for the lack of such records.

However, I realized that there could be other explanations for the Barton family origin. While we are definitely “Anglo-Saxon” via Y-DNA (or the DNA that is used to track male generations). Also according to DNA, we definitely could be related to some Bartons in the Lancashire area. However, the latest ancestor for our best match is listed at least 100 years after Isaac left Ireland. How do these bits of information match up exactly?

I realized that there were a lot of reasons why a boy born in mostly Catholic Killaloe might become a Quaker, the least of which was a rebellious personality that rejected not only the religious hegemony of the Catholic church, but the hegemony of religious authority altogether (since the Quakers do not believe in having “ministers” or “leaders” in their worship). Could be that Isaac married, and converted, for love? They moved to Tipperary after their marriage, which was a hotbed of Irish Quaker life. Although his birthplace wasn’t far from the city, it was solidly in areas that, at the time, were reserved for the native Irish and not yet taken over by the invading protestant Brits.

I don’ t have the answers to any of these questions, really. All I can do is ponder. I tend toward the romantic, so I want grandfather Isaac to have converted for love, or even for the sheer rebelliousness of his conscience. I suspect the answer is much more mundane.