John T. Barton
Constitutional Delegate. Born: 1831, Albemarle County, Virginia.
Dr. John T. Barton was born 1831 in Albemarle County, Virginia, and was, at the time of the convention unmarried and living in an Olathe boarding house. Barton moved to Kansas from Missouri in 1856 and was elected to a seat in the territorial legislature from Johnson County on October 6 of that year. Prior to the opening of that second proslavery legislative assembly, however, Barton resigned his position. Twice elected treasurer of Johnson County, on October 5, 1857, and March 22, 1858, Barton also was involved in the state railroad convention of 1860 . . . He was, according to Leavenworth's Daily Times, "the only African from the counties South of the Kansas River. He is pro-slavery all over."
Barton served on the corporations and banking and the phraseology and arrangement committees at the convention, and took part in some of the floor discussion. On July 22, for example, Barton went on record as opposed to the annexation of southern Nebraska "on the ground that the question . . . [had] not been submitted to the people and approved by them."
Entry: Barton, John T.
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: June 2011
Date Modified: July 2012
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