Thomas Barton (121)

Thomas Barton (1728–25 May 1780) was an Anglican minister and natural historian, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1768. Born in Ireland and educated at the University of Dublin, Barton emigrated to a small town outside Philadelphia in 1751, moving into the city in 1752, where he taught at the Academy of Philadelphia. After two years, he went to London for Anglican ordination, returning to a small frontier congregation in Adams County, PA, a region at the heart of the imperial conflict with French-allied Indians during the Seven Years’ War (1754–63). He served as a chaplain in 1758 before finding a more lucrative position at St. James in Lancaster. He founded the Lancaster Library Company and from Thomas Penn received books, globes, a planetarium, and a telescope. There Barton nurtured his interest in natural history, sending back to Penn some of his more novel samples; Barton also nurtured an interest in astronomy, which he imparted as mentor and lifelong friend to brother-in-law and APS member David Rittenhouse. Barton further exploited his connections to support his growing family, gaining a life tenancy on a proprietary farm in 1767, among other emoluments. His complicated views on Native Americans—Barton believed in developing English civilization and commerce and had seen the effects of native warmaking, but he also aspired to the soul-saving conversion of native peoples—helps explain his otherwise infamous explanation of the Paxton massacre. Despite claiming neutrality, he was forced to close St. James in 1776, in part because he refused to abjure the king, owing to his being Head of the Church of England. In 1778 Barton sought to leave. He sold his property, but before taking flight, fell ill in 1779 and died in New York in 1780. Sons William and Benjamin Smith Barton both were APS members. (PI)