Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/716

 K2S,

VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

1 9 14, a nK'inl)er of the Xational Foreign 'l>ade Council of the United States.

He is a member of the Virginia Historical Society of Richmond, and of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. His church is St. Luke's Protestant Epis- copal, and for many years he has been a vestryman of that congregation. He was for twenty-three years a director of the ^'oung Men's Christian Association of Nor- folk, and from 1900 to 1904 president of the association.

Mr. Barton Myers married, at Winches- ter. Virginia, Katherine Macky Baldwin, daughter of Dr. Robert F. Baldwin and Caroline M. (Barton) Baldwin (see Bald- win line). Mrs. Barton Myers, the mother of five children, has found time for wide service in religious and philanthropic organ- izations. She is a prominent member of Norfolk society and in 1888 was one of sev- eral Norfolk women who established a free hospital at Virginia Beach, on the Atlantic shore, and for twenty-six years she has been president of the organization that has there sent the poor and sick children of the city for recreation and convalescence. She has also for seven years been chairman of the women's auxiliary to the Naval Young Men's Christian Association. The large and finely equipped building at Norfolk being devoted to the use of the enlisted men of the United States navy, thousands of whom visit Norfolk annually. Children of Barton and Katherine Macky (Baldwin) Myers: I. Robert Baldwin, born November 19, 1883; studied law at the University of Virginia, and was admitted to the bar in Norfolk in 1907. 2. Katherine Barton, born September 14, 1886. 3. Louisa Barton, born June 26, 1888; graduated from Vassar College in New York in 1912, and March i, 1914, as a missionary of the Protestant Episcopal church, accepted a position in St. Agnes' School in Kyoto, Japan. 4. Barton, Jr., born February 12, 1894; student at the University of Virginia. 5. Frances Stuart Baldwin, born November 26, 1895.

(The Barton Line).

(1) In 1750 Rev. Thomas Barton, born in county Monoghan, Ireland, in 1730 or 31, came to America, a graduate of Trinity Col- lege, Dublin. He located in Norriton town- ship. Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, and there opened a school, which he con-

ducted until called, in 175 1 or 1752, to a tutorship at the Academy of Philadelphia, the embryonic University of Pennsylvania of the present day. He remained at the academy until 1754, then resigned, stating in his letter to the trustees, under date of August 13, that he intended taking holy orders. He was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England in London, January 29, 1755, returning to Pennsylvania the April following under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and conducting missionary work in Huntingdon county, his territory covering Lancaster, York. Carlisle. Shippensburg. and other towns as well. After Braddock's defeat he volunteered for military service and is found among a list of captains en- gaged in action. Three years later, in 1758, he was appointed chaplain by General John Forbes, his commission dated June 11, 1758. He served with the "Pennsylvania Regi- ment" of three battalions, and on July 9. 1758. was authorized by General Forbes "to discharge all ministerial functions belong- ing to a clergyman of the Church of Eng- land amongst the troops of my command." He remained with the army until Wash- ington and Forbes had occupied Fort Du- quesne in November, 1758, then returned home. In 1759 he was appointed rector of St. James' Church at Lancaster, Pennsyl- vania, and missionary for the congrega- tions at Pequea and Caernarvon. He con- tinued in that parish until near the close of the year 1777, then, refusing to subscribe to the oath of allegiance to the state and continental authorities, he was compelled to seek asylum within the British lines in New York. He was separated from his family until April. 1780. when a meeting was efifected at Elizabeth, New Jersey, Rev. Bar- ton then being in very poor health. After bidding his children farewell he returned to New York, where he died the following May 25. He received the degree of Master of Arts from the College of Philadelphia in 1760, and from King's College, now Colum- bia University, in 1770.

He married (first) December 8. 1753, at Old Swedes Church, Philadelphia, Esther, daughter of Matthias and Elizabeth (Wil- liams) Rittenhouse, and sister of the famous savant and scientist, David Rittenhouse. She was born in 1731. died June 18. 1774, and was buried in the cemeterv of St. lames'