Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/211

Rh received in the Winchester Medical College, founded by Dr. McGuire and destroyed by Federal troops during the civil war, whence he obtained his M. D. in 1858. His active practice began in Winchester, Virginia, and at the beginning of active hostilities in 1861 he enlisted in Company B, Thirteenth Regiment Virginia Infantry, and, en route to Harper's Ferry, was summoned to Winchester, Virginia. by order of the Confederate army, to assist in the organization of an army hospital. He afterward became head physician of the Old Tavern Hospital, and when Winchester fell into the hands of the Union forces he was appointed post surgeon, an office he held until the close of the war.

When peace followed those years of bloodshed Dr. Miller resumed his practice in Winchester, the change from the easing of suffering caused by man's violence to the treatment of natural ailments being one most welcome, and he is there active in his profession to the present time. He is a member of the Virginia Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and for the past fifty years has served as city physician of Winchester, service unusual in duration and in fidelity alike, and for a part of that time has been associate physician of the almshouse that receives its inmates from the Frederick county district. Although Dr. Miller was reared in the Lutheran faith, his present religious beliefs are Presbyterian, and he affiliates with the Democratic party. His profession has always served as a cloak for the many kind acts and charitable deeds to which his sympathetic nature impelled him. Few have known, as they have seen his entry into the homes in which sickness and suffering, often aggravated by poverty, existed, of the extent of his ministrations or how far in his blessed benevolence, he has exceeded the requirements made upon a physician. Throughout his long and useful life he has given free rein to the gentler virtues, and, maintaining sturdy faith in mankind, has devoted himself to its service.

Dr. Miller married, October 28, 1868, Mary J. Long, born in Frederick county, Virginia in 1847, died in 1889, daughter of George R. and Harriet (Richards') Long. Their children, all born in Winchester, are: Frank Richards, born in October, 1871, died in 1889: Godfrey, born October 27, 1874, engages in the lumber business; William C. born in 1877, engages in lumber dealing in Winchester in partnership with his brother Godfrey, under the firm name Miller Brothers.

Robert Thomas Barton. The name of Barton was a familiar one in most of the American colonies, the founders coming from various parts of Great Britain. The seat of the family was in Lancashire, in the North of England, near the Scottish border and the Irish sea, making both Scotland and Ireland easy of access for emigrants. Most of the Irish Bartons were Protestants and are supposed to have all come to Ireland from England, where the family dates from the twelfth century. The original name of the family was Nottun, the present name having been acquired with the manor of Barton, through intermarriage. The arms borne by Barton of Barton were: On a field argent, three boars' heads sable, armed or. Crest: A boar's head gules, couped argent. Motto: Fide et fortitudine.

The Bartons of Virginia descend from Rev. Thomas Barton, born in county Monaghan. Ireland, in 1730, died in New York, May 25. 1780. He was a graduate of the University of Dublin, took orders in the Church of England, and came to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he was rector of St. James' Church for over twenty years. He married Esther, a sister of the noted astronomer, David Rittenhouse. One of his sons, Benjamin Smith Barton, was a famous botanist and scientist: another son, Richard P. Barton, was the founder of the Virginia family of which Robert T. Barton, of Winchester is representative.

Richard P. Barton was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, died in Frederick county, Virginia, January. 1821, having settled in Frederick county sometime within the decade 1780-90. He was a farmer and landowner, a man of education and high standing. He married Martha Walker, of Petersburg, Virginia. David W. Barton, son of Richard P. Barton, was born in Frederick county. Virginia, 1800, died in Winchester, Virginia, July 7, 1863. He was educated at Yale and was for many years one of the leading lawyers of the valley of Virginia, an accomplished scholar and writer of great ability, ease and felicity of expression. He was learned in the law. the trusted friend and adviser of the community, but his excessive diffidence