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 advantage 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 evetually 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 hinself 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 this 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 attahed 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.Source: "History of Fayette County, by Franklin Ellis, Philadelphia, L H Everts and Company, 1882. page 694