Sarah Miriah Barton

Sarah Mariah Horton was the oldest child of George Horton and Sarah Ann Butler, both of England. She was born September 23, 1856, in Cedar City, Utah. In the 1860 census for Beaver, Utah, Sarah was 3 years old and living with her father, George, 40, and mother Sarah, 23, and younger sister, Ellen, 4 months old. Her father was working as a day laborer, had real estate valued at $300 and a personal estate of $375. In 1870 they were listed in the census as: George, 52, Sarah, 32, Sarah M., 13, Ellen A., 10, Ann E., 6, Martha G., 4, and George R., 10 months old. George was still farming and his real estate was valued at $500 and his personal estate at $300.

Sarah married Joseph Alma Barton in about 1876, and by the 1880 census they were living in Greenville, Beaver County, Utah, and were listed as follows with their first two children: Joseph A., 32, Sarah M., 23, Sarah E., 3, and Joseph W., 1 year old. Joseph was working as a farmer. Living next door was Joseph Alma Barton's brother, Daniel, and he was married to Sarah Mariah Horton Barton's younger sister, Ellen. Daniel and Ellen were both 26 years old, and they had a 10 month old son, William S. Daniel was also farming.

Sarah and Joseph had four more children, George Alma, William Chesley, Stephen Alma who was stillborn in 1884 and David William who died at the age of one month old in 1887. Sadly, their oldest daughter, Sarah E., passed away at the very young age of 17 years old in 1894 from typhoid fever. Tragically, the following year, Joseph Alma Barton also passed away at the young age of just 47 years old from appendicitis and a kidney ailment. Sarah was only 37 years old when her husband passed away.

In the same 1880 census, living three doors down were Joseph and Daniel's parents, William Barton, 59, and Sarah Esther West Barton, 50, and their children Stephen Rollins Barton, 20, Estella, 18, Philip J., 15, Hugh J., 12, and William's plural wife, Mary, 42, and their children, Mary A., 18, Amanda, 15, Sophronia, 9, Julia K., 5, Amy E., 3, and Charles H., 1 month old. William was working as a miller and Stephen as a laborer.

Sarah Mariah Barton was listed with her children in the 1900 census as follows: Sarah, 42-year old widow, Joseph W., 21, George A., 19, William P., 17, and also living in their home was someone by the name of Mary E. Barton, 17, listed as a step-daughter. Sarah was working as a farmer, and she owned her own farm free from a mortgage.

Living next door on one side of Sarah and her children was her brother-in-law, Stephen R. Barton, 39, and his wife, Sarah E., 35, and their children, Adelaide, 14, Stephen, 12, Sarah B., 10, Barbara, 8, Sherman, 7, Hilda J., 5, and Amasa, 2 years old.

Living on the other side of Sarah's family was her other brother-in-law, Daniel, 46, and his wife and Sarah's sister, Ellen, 40, and their children, William, 20, Daniel, 19, Hannag, 16, Jessie, 14, Roy, 12, Margaret, 10, Sarah E., 8, and George, 5 years old.

Next door to Daniel was his younger brother, Philip Barton, 36, and his widowed mother, Sarah Esther West Barton, 79. Also living with them were Lennie and Edith Griffiths, 19 and 8 years old respectively, who were cousins of Philip, being his sister's daughters.

Just two doors down on the other side was Hugh J. Barton, 31, another brother-in-law of Sarah's, and his wife, Agnes, 26, and their two children, Eula A., 6, and Samuel L., 2. All of the Barton sons were working as farmers. At least Sarah had a lot of family nearby after the death of her husband Joseph Alma Barton.

In the 1910 census for Greenville, Sarah M. Barton, 53, was caring for a 10-year old girl by the name of Maud Gressman who was listed as an orphan. Her parents, Joseph Gressman and Mary Gillins Gressman, had died in 1906 and 1904 respectively. According to Joseph Gressman's Find A Grave.com memorial, he committed suicide. The article reads as follows:

Joseph Gressman of Goodsprings Found Dead: October 28, 1906, the body of Joseph Gressman, a miner who has worked in the Goodsprings district for several years, was found on the Goodsprings and Ivanpah wagon road about one half mile from Goodsprings, with a bullet hole in his head behind and above the right ear and a pistol near his right hand. The discovery was made by H.J. Jarman and W.T. Roberts. Justice C.M. Over of Goodsprings, as acting corner, impaneled a jury comprised of Harold Riddall, A.F. Carroll, Charles F. Byram, L.L. Steward, S.E. Yount, and P.H. Springer. The inquest brought out no evidence of a struggle or other suspicious circumstance and the jury's verdict was that the deceased came to his death by his own hand, while in a fit of mental depression or despondency.

W.T. Roberts testified that he was personally acquainted with the deceased, and had last seen him alive in the evening of October 16th, when he appeared to be laboring under mental trouble of some kind. Jed Gressman, son of the deceased, recognized the pistol as one belonging to his father. (Note: perhaps Joseph was despondent over the death of his wife in 1904. They had 10 children between 1883 and 1904, and their last child, Marie "Tiny" Gressman, was born December 14, 1904, and her mother, Mary Gillins Gressman, passed away just 3 days later on December 17. Her death may have been a result of some problem with her pregnancy or the delivery of Baby Marie. I wonder what happened to the other 9 children. Maybe they were parceled out to various members of the community to be raised after the death of their parents.

In the 1910 census, Sarah's brother-in-law, Stephen Rollins Barton, 49, was living next door with his wife, Sarah E., 42, their widowed daughter, Adelaide Patterson, 24, and their other children S.F. Barton, 22, Sarah B., 20, Barbara, 18, Sherman S., 16, Hilda, 14, Amasa, 12, and Annie O., 6. Stephen was still working as a farmer. Sarah was no longer working but had her "own income" according to the census record. Sarah Mariah Barton had given birth to 5 children, 3 of whom were still living. Stephen Rollins Barton and his wife Sarah E., had given birth to 9 children, 8 of whom were still living. Their daughter, Adelaide Patterson, who was a 24-year old widow indicated she had given birth to 3 children, 2 of whom were still living, but ironically, they were not living with the family at the time according to the census.

In the 1920 census Sarah Mariah Horton Barton was a 64-year old widow working as a dairy farmer. Her son, George Alma Barton, 38, was living next door with his wife and 2 sons, Lizzie, 32, Ralph, 8, and Raymond, one year, six months old. Living next door to George was his uncle, Stephen Rollins Barton, 59, and his wife and children, Sarah, 55, Sherman, 25, Amasa, 21, and a grandson, Thomas Patterson, 12. Both George and Stephen were also working as farmers.

Sarah Mariah Horton Barton passed away 5 years later at the age of 68 in 1925 and was buried in the Greenville Cemetery with her husband Joseph Alma Barton.

The following is taken from a book entitled, Our Eternal Legacy, The Story of William, Esther and Mary Barton. It tells about the death of Hetty and then later her father Alma.

In the fall of 1894, a typhoid epidemic broke out. Alma's two children, Hetty and Wes, were the first ones to get it. Daphne Barton Smith, Daniel's daughter, remembered walking into their house and seeing both of them lying in bed very ill. Hetty was such a pretty girl, plump and good-natured. Daphne walked over to the side of her bed and stood there for a moment; then she bent down and kissed her. She stood there a little while longer, and then her auntie said, "you'd better go to school now Daffy, or you'll be late." Hetty kissed her again, and Daphne walked out of the house. On her way to school she had such a sick feeling and was worried. "Hetty looked awfully sick," she was thinking.

In just one week, on the twenty-fourth of November, Hetty, Alma's only daughter, at age eighteen, died. Nothing like this had ever happened before on the bench, and no one anywhere was happy. The day of the funeral, Daphne went with the others to Uncle Alma's house. She went into the room where Hetty was. Some of the aunts and Grandma Esther were there. Daphne's auntie said, "Go in the other room, dear, till we put her in this pretty box; then I will come and bring you to see her." After a while, she came and took Daphne to where the casket stood, covered with black velvet and lined with satin and lace. It also had silver trimmings and handles and seemed so high. Her auntie lifted Daphne up, and there Hetty was, not the girl Daphne loved, but a beautiful lady. Her auntie must have wanted her to remember, for she called attention to Hetty's dress, which was white cashmere, pleated full and tied at the waist with a heavy white cord with tassels that were down half way to the bottom of her dress. Her pretty slippers also had silver trimmings.

Daphne attended the funeral and then went with the family to the cemetery. She was just standing there when, all at once she heard the most awful sound, not loud but awful. She looked around and saw that Uncle Alma was leaning over that awful hole in the ground, running his hand through his hair and making a gasping, sobbing sound. Daphne's father, Dan, was standing so close to him. His other brothers, Jack, Hugh, John and Stephen were there, as were grandpa and grandma and aunt Telly. Daphne couldn't stand it, so she ran away where she couldn't hear. After a while she came back. They were still standing together there, but were so quiet, and the men were putting the soft brown earth back. They made a neat little mound over where Hetty's body lay.

The following winter went by with only the usual croup, sore throat, and so on, until one night in February Alma became seriously ill. Daphne heard Wes, Alma's oldest son and their cousin, Eva, John's daughter, talking about it at school the next day. Evidently Alma had gone to his brother John's for help, because he was afraid he was going to die. Wes said, "I sure was scared; I thought he was going to die." Alma suffered untold agony for a week and then died on February 26, 1895. Dr. Christian, the family's good friend, did everything that he could. At that time he called it inflammation of something or other; now we know it as appendicitis. That is what caused Alma's death.

Once more the families in Bartonville, or on the "Bench" as they often called it, were bowed down in grief. And Mariah, Alma's wife was overcome with sorrow. She kept saying, over and over, "I just don't know what we are going to do without Alma." And how she cried.

The day of the funeral, Daphne was standing by the casket near Grandma Esther, and as always, Grandma was so calm and composed. Some friends from Beaver were consoling her. Grandma reached into the casket and held Uncle Alma's hand and said, "This isn't Alma, Sister Shepherd, this is just the clay. Alma has just gone on." Grandma was so calm and self-possessed in contrast to Grandpa. When he looked the last time at Alma, he cried brokenly, "Goodbye Alma. Goodbye, my boy." Daphne later recalled, "But what I didn't understand was my father's deep grief at the loss of his companion brother. Afterwards I heard people say, "Dan's hair turned grey in a night." Auntie said to my mother, "they surely loved each other, didn't they, Nell? Just like David and Johnathan." Then I did not know what she meant, but today I read in the Bible, "The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David and he loved him as his soul."

Such a large congregation attended the funeral. Friends from any places came to pay their respects. Daphne also remembered that Mr. Robert Stoney brought his excellent choir from Beaver. The singing was wonderful, but one song was especially beautiful and she memorized a little of it:

"Beautiful gates that stand ajar to greet a stranger from afar, a gleam across the portals come, to guide a weary, worn traveler home."

Of the rest of the day, Daphne remembered little. So many people had come from Paragonah. Grandfather William, some of his brothers, and many cousins were there, and they had a family dinner at Daphne's house. "My father had killed some wild geese, so Mother and the other sisters served a goose dinner."

When Alma died, he left three small boys, Alma, Wesley and Bill. All of Alma's brothers helped a good deal, but Grandma Esther and Jack took most of the responsibility and helped Mariah raise her young children. Alma was previously married to Mary Lundblad, and they later divorced. From this union, a girl, Mary Amberzine (Zina) was born and went with her mother after the separation. Mary, the mother, later married a Mr. Ash, and Zina took the name of her stepfather. When Zina grew up, she married Fred Mackrell and gave birth to two sons, Elton and Walter.

Alma was very well known and thought highly of by all who knew him. Because he knew the Indian language well enough to be able to communicate with some of the tribal chiefs, he was many times able to prevent trouble between the Indians and the whites. He also acted as a United States marshal in some of the early escapades.