no hostility or treachery among the Indians, and the frontiers would have had the defence of righteousness. John Penn, the Proprietary, said of Barton:
Nor has he done anything in the military way but what hath increased his character for piety, and that of a sincerely religious man and zealous minister. In short he is a most worthy, active and serviceable Pastor and Missionary.
Mr. Barton married in 1753 a sister of David Rittenhouse. The College and Academy conferred on him in 1760 the degree of Master of Arts, and the same was conferred by Kings College in 1770. His son Benjamin Smith Barton was in 1789 elected Professor of Natural History and Botany in the College, and in 1813 from that was made Professor of Materia Medica in the University. And his grandson William P. C. Barton was chosen Professor of Botany, in 1816, succeeding his uncle, whose death occurred in 1815.
In his son's Memoirs of David Rittenhouse it is said that his death put a period to the sincere and intimate friendship between that gentleman and Mr Rittenhouse, which had subsisted almost thirty years. This friendship, which may be said to have commenced almost in the youth of both parties, continued without interruption until the year 1776; when the declaration of American independence produced, unhappily, some abatement of it on each side; at least, so far as related to that great political measure, respecting which they entertained different opinions. For, although Mr. Barton was, in truth, warmly attached to the principles of the English Whigs; and had, on various occasions, manifested his zeal for the liberties of the American people and rights of the colonists; his opinions were conscientiously opposed, and only these, to the expediency of that measure. Yet, it is believed, that the personal friendship of these intimate relatives was far from having ever subsided; the ties that early united them, were of the strongest kind; that union was of long continuance; and they were mutually sensible of each other's worth and talents.[1]
The loyal obituary notice of him which appeared in the Royal Gazette, 31 May, 1780, is worthy of record here:
On Thursday the 25th inst. departed this life aged 50 years, the Reverend Thomas Barton, A. M., the Society's Missionary for Lancaster, in the Province of Pennsylvania. This worthy Clergyman was distinguished
- ↑ Memoirs of Rittenhouse, by William Barton, M.A., p. 287.
