Sacramento County
Biographies
HIRAM EMMET BARTON
HIRAM EMMET BARTON, a rancher of Natoma Township,
was born in Cattaraugus County, New
York, November 6, 1833, his parents being Hiram and Almira (Guy) Barton. The family moved to Iowa
in 1837, settling on a farm eleven miles from Burlington. In
1859 the parents went back to New York and there bought a farm on which they
lived until 1865, when they came to California, arriving at White Rock, El
Dorado County, by the train that brought the news of the assassination of President
Lincoln. After a visit of two years with the subject of this sketch, they
settled at Davisville, Yolo
County, where the father died in
1872 aged about seventy-four. The mother survived him nine years, dying in
1881, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Isaac Baylis,
near Red Bluffs, California. They
had nine children who grew to maturity, of whom four are residents of this
coast: H. E., the subject of this sketch; Timothy, who lives a few miles
further east, in El Dorado County; Henry, at the Willows, in Colusa County, and
Jane, Mrs. Isaac Baylis, now of Maxwell, Colusa
County, H. E. Barton left Iowa, in 1853, as driver of a ten-ox team for Rev.
John W. Short, who settled in Oregon. Mr. Barton worked in a saw-mill
eight miles east of Albany until April, 1854, when he came
to San Francisco by steamer from Portland.
He then struck out for the mines at Mud Springs, El
Dorado County,
where he mined with some success for two years. In
1856 he came down on Deer Creek and went into the business of raising cattle on
the free ranges between Clarksville
and Latrobe. On March 4, 1859, he was married to Miss Margaret Skiffington, born in New York city,
in April, 1844, and there reared, but living with an aunt at Mud
Springs, California, since
1856. After his marriage, Mr. Barton made a trip to the East, visiting his
relatives in Iowa and New York
and returned in 1860. He resumed his business of cattle-raising, and in
1862 went into dairying, hauling the product from the mountain range to Nevada
in summer, and from the plains to Sacramento
in winter. In 1866 he bought 400 acres ten miles from Folsom on the Michigan
Bar road, which he has since increased to 3,040; all this is in Sacramento
County. Besides, he has 580
acres in Lake Valley,
El Dorado County,
and 320 in Alpine County, used mostly as a stock range. He, however, farms
between 300 and 400 acres, raising hay and grain for home consumption. He
usually keeps a herd of 3,000 sheep, 300 head of cattle (of which about 125 are
milch cows for dairy products), and seventy-five
horses, some of them a superior breed. He was deputy sheriff of El
Dorado County two terms under
W. H. Brown and is deputy sheriff of Sacramento
County at the present time under
George C. McMullen. He has also been school trustee in the district in which he
lives for the last seven years. Mrs. Barton died October 21, 1884, leaving
eight children: Henry Clay, born August 17, 1859; Robert Guy, July 6, 1860;
John Quincy, July 6, 1862; Nettie, July 10, 1865; Hiram Emmet, April 5, 1867;
William Delos, April 10, 1868; Isabel May, September 4, 1869, and died November
9, 1883; David Lester, born October 4, 1870; and George H., December 4, 1871,
all born in California. John Q. was married May 15, 1888, to Miss Bell
Phillips, born in Oregon of American parentage, and has one boy, John Harris,
born February 15, 1889. Nettie was married May 10, 1887, to John L., son
of Hon. J. H. and Eliza Miller, formerly of Latrobe, now of Sacramento.
Transcribed 9-28-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated
History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 770-771.
Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Marilyn R. Pankey.