Edmund, youngest son of Samuel and Hannah Barton, was born in Framingham, August 15, 1715. He married, April 9, 1739, Anna Flint, of Salem. She was born June 9, 1718, eldest daughter of Stephen Flint and his wife, Hannah Moulton. Anna Flint was the granddaughter of John Flint, of Salem Village (Danvers), and great-granddaughter of Thomas Flint, who came to Salem before 1650.
Edmund settled in Sutton, and owned lands there and in Oxford. He and his wife became members of the First Church in Sutton, and later transferred their membership to the Second Church in Sutton, which subsequently became the First Church in Millbury. He served in the French War, and was at Fort Edward in 1753. He died December 13, 1799, and Anna, his wife, died March 20, 1795.
The eldest son of Edmund and Anna Barton was Stephen Barton, born June 10, 1740, at Sutton. He studied medicine with Dr. Green, of Leicester, and practiced his profession in Oxford and in Maine. He had unusual professional skill, as well as great sympathy and charity. He married at Oxford, May 28, 1765, Dorothy Moore, who was born at Oxford, April 12, 1747, daughter of Elijah Moore and Dorothy Learned. On her father’s side she was the granddaughter of Richard, great-granddaughter of Jacob, and great-great-granddaughter of John Moore. John Moore and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Philemon Whale, bought a home in Sudbury in 1642. Their son, Jacob, married Elizabeth Looker, daughter of Henry Looker, of Sudbury, and lived in Sudbury. Their son Richard, born in Sudbury in 1670, married Mary Collins, daughter of Samuel Collins, of Middletown, Connecticut, and granddaughter of Edward Collins, of Cambridge. Richard Moore was one of the most capable and trusted men in early Oxford. Dorothy Learned, wife of Elijah Moore, was the daughter of Colonel Ebenezer Learned, the largest landowner in Oxford, one of the original thirty proprietors. He was a man of superior personality, for thirty-two years one of the selectmen, for many years chairman of that body, and moderator of town meetings, a justice of the peace, a representative in the Great and General Court, and an officer in the militia from 1718 to 1750, beginning as Ensign and reaching the rank of Colonel. He was active in the affairs of the town, the church, and the military organization during his long and useful life. His wife was Deborah Haynes, daughter of John Haynes, of Sudbury. He was the son of Isaac Learned, Jr., of Framingham, who had been a soldier in the Narraganset War, and his wife, Sarah Bigelow, daughter of John Bigelow, of Watertown. Isaac Learned was the son of Isaac Learned, Sr., of Woburn and Chelmsford, and his wife, Mary Stearns, daughter of Isaac Stearns, of Watertown. The parents of Isaac Learned, Sr., were William and Goditha Learned, members of the Charlestown Church in 1632, and of Woburn Church in 1642.
The Learned family shared with the Barton family in the formation of the English settlement in Oxford, and were intimately related by intermarriage and many mutual interests. Brigadier-General Ebenezer Learned, a distinguished officer in the Revolution, was a brother of Dorothy Learned Moore, the great-grandmother of Clara Barton.
Dr. Stephen Barton and his wife, Dorothy Moore, had thirteen children. Their sons were Elijah Moore, born October 12, 1765, and died June 13, 1769; Gideon, born March 29, 1767, and died October 27, 1770; Stephen, born August 18, 1774; Elijah Moore, born August 10, 1784; Gideon, born June 18, 1786; and Luke, born September 3, 1791. The first two sons died at an early age; the four remaining sons lived to marry, and three of them lived in Maine. The daughters of Dr. Stephen Barton and Dorothy, his wife, were Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe, Hannah, Parthena, Polly, and Dolly.
It is interesting to note in the names of these daughters a departure from the common New England custom of seeking Bible names, and the naming of the first two daughters after the two principal heroines of Samuel Richardson.
Of this family, the third son, and the eldest to survive, was Stephen Barton, Jr., known as Captain Stephen Barton, father of Clara Barton.
CHAPTER IV
HER PARENTAGE AND INFANCY
Captain Stephen Barton won his military title by that system of post-bellum promotion familiar in all American communities. He was a non-commissioned officer in the wars against the Indians. He was nineteen when he enlisted, and marched on foot with his troop from Boston to Philadelphia, which at that time was the Nation’s capital. The main army was then at Detroit under command of General Wayne, whom the soldiers lovingly knew as “Mad Anthony.” William Henry Harrison and Richard M. Johnson, later President and Vice-President of the United States, were then lieutenants, and Stephen Barton fought side by side with them. He was present when Tecumseh was slain, and at the signing of the treaty of peace which followed. His military service extended over three years. At the close of the war he marched home on foot through northern Ohio and central New York. He and the other officers were greatly charmed by the Genesee and Mohawk valleys, and he purchased land somewhere in the vicinity of Rochester. He had some thought of establishing a home in that remote region, but it was so far distant from civilization that he sold his New York land and made his home in Oxford.
In 1796, Stephen Barton returned from the Indian War. He was then twenty-two years of age. Eight years later he married Sarah Stone, who was only seventeen. They established their home west of Oxford, near Charlton, and later removed to the farm where Clara Barton was born.