Robert Thomas Barton

Background

He was born on November 24, 1842, in Winchester. He was descended from English ancestors who had settled in Ireland in the seventeenth century.

Education

He received a good education, attending Winchester and Bloomfield Academies in Albemarle County, Virginia, and commenced the study of law, but on the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate army, enlisting as a private in Company F, 2nd Virginia Infantry. On the termination of the war he resumed his legal studies and was admitted to the bar in 1865.

Career

He opened an office in his hometown, Winchester, and practised there for more than fifty years. Inheriting from his father a keen legal instinct, which he fortified with wide study, he soon acquired a substantial practise.

In 1883 he was elected a member of the House of Delegates for one term. Although he was more interested in his profession than in politics, he was always to the fore in local and municipal affairs, serving at one time as mayor of Winchester. In 1893 he became president of the Virginia State Bar Association. In 1894 he was nominated for the position of judge of the supreme court of Virginia, but was not elected. His later years were occupied in extensive explorations of the unpublished public papers and records of the colony, as a result of which he prepared Virginia Colonial Decisions: The Reports by Sir John Randolph and by Edward Barradall of Decisions of the General Court of Virginia 1728-1741, which was published in two volumes in 1909. These reports of decisions of the highest court of the chief English colony had been preserved only in manuscript form inaccessible to the profession and the public alike. He prefaced the reports with an erudite Introduction, giving a "perspective sketch of the contemporaneous conditions during the times of the decisions, with some account of the writers of them and of the lawyers who practised at the Bar of the General Court of that day. " He was also the author of a number of articles and addresses, mostly on historical subjects.

Achievements

• He became known as an authority on the practise of the courts, more particularly on the Chancery side, and wrote two manuals, Law Practice (1877) and Chancery Practice (1881), both of which were received with favor by the profession.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Pleading and Practice in the Courts of Chancery, Vol. 2 of 2 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Pleading and Practice in the Courts of Chanc...)

  • Pleading and Practice in the Courts of Chancery V.1 1899

    (Originally published in 1899. This volume from the Cornel...)

Connections

He was twice married: on Feb. 19, 1868, to Katie Knight of Cecil County; and on June 10, 1890, to Gertrude Baker of Winchester.

Father:

David Barton

Mother:

Fannie Jones

Wife:

Katie Knight

Wife:

Gertrude Baker

References

• The Story of Winchester in Virginia: The Oldest Town in the Shenandoah Valley