J. BENJAMIN BARTON

The following bio was taken from page 103 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

J. Benjamin Barton was born in Spartanburg District, South Carolina. He married Zilpha Baker, born in Pickens County, South Carolina. He was the son of Benjamin, born 1760 in Pendleton District, South Carolina, and Dorcas Anderson Barton. Dorcas was the daughter of John Anderson and Sarah Carney Anderson natives of South Carolina. Benjamin, born in 1760, was a Revolutionary soldier.

J. Benjamin came to the Republic of Texas, County of Harrison, about 1842, buying six hundred and forty acres of land from Samuel Gholson, said land being a part of a league of land surveyed for Arthur Horn. Some of the other land owners in the area were: William Hall, John B. Hall, George English, and William McKinney.

It was a period of the Moderator-Regulator War when J. Benjamin Barton and Zilpha came to Texas. Family living in East Texas was dangerous. It was referred to as "The Wild Frontier." Benjamin lived west of Marshall, Texas, about three miles or more. Benjamin was clearing land, farming, and trading in horses.

According to family stories, J. Benjamin had been on a horse trading expedition in Louisiana when, upon his return, he was ambushed near his home, robbed, and killed. He was hanged on a tree. His grave is near where he was killed and is marked only by a triangle which is "never to be disturbed" (from a land deed) at the present site of Highway 80 east of Marshall. He died in 1843.

After Benjamin died, Zilpha moved with her family to Rusk County, Texas, where Benjamin had a bounty land grant. They lived near the present community of Crims Chapel. They lived in that area at the time of the Mexican War and the War Between the States. Several sons were in one or more of these wars.

There were thirteen known children born to Benjamin and Zilpha, all born in Pickens County, South Carolina, except the youngest child, Bailey A., who was born in Texas. The children were: James Matison, Baker and Tead (possibly twins), Reubin Patric, Elliott Monroe, Benjamin, M.O., Nancy Averilla, Thomas Jefferson (my great-grandfather), Waddy Thompson, Melissa D., Lemuel Carroll, and Bailey A.

Thomas Jefferson Barton lived in Rusk County and married Sarah Jane Brown Everett in 1872. They had three children: Sarah Flora (my grandmother), who married Mumford Sidney Freeman: Johnnie Eugenia (Jeannie), who married Walter Hillen; and Thomas, who died young.

Mumford Sidney and Sarah Flora had eleven children. The eldest of these children was my father, William Mumford Freeman.

Some of the children of J. Benjamin and Zilpha remained in Rusk County, Texas, and have many descendants here today. Some moved on westward to Van Zandt, Hill, Smith, Palo Pinto, Eastland, and other counties in Texas. Zilpha died in Eastland County and is buried northeast of Desdemonia in Howard Cemetery.

Submitted by Virginia Freeman Selman