FATHER

William Barton

MOTHER

 unknown

2nd Mary unknown

CHILDREN with Anne Smoot

1. Grace Barton b. 26 Aug 1659 Charles Co., MD                        

2. William Barton b. 29 Jun 1662 Charles Co., MD                        

CHILDREN with Mary

1. Mary Barton b. 25 Mar 1667 Charles Co., MD

2. Margaret Barton b. 1665 Charles Co., MD

3. William Barton b. 27 Feb 1666/67 Charles Co., MD

4. Elizabeth Barton b. 7 Feb 1671/72 Charles Co., MD

We are not sure who Mary Barton’s mother was. There has been some speculation that it was Ann Smoot, but we believe that it was Mary M., William Barton’s second wife, although there is not much doubt that William Barton’s first wife was Ann Smoot.
We know that William Barton Jr. was married to Ann, relict of William Hungerford. (See the statement of Robert Cager, Archives of Maryland Vol 41 pg 455) We also know from a deposition that she gave, that she married William Barton Jr. as early as 1655 and as late as 1661. (See the deposition of Ann Hungerford, Archives of Maryland Vol 41 pg 469) In the deposition she also stated that she was “twenty years and upward”, which means that she was born about 1641.
In 1646 William Smoot was given a patent for land in Maryland as an Immigrant. (See Patent series Vol 4, Patents Liber AB&H, folio 230) In that patent he stated that his wife was Grace, and that his children were Ales, Ann, Elizabeth, Richard and Thomas. If Ann Smoot is indeed the same as Ann (Hungerford) Barton mentioned above, she was about 5 years old when she came to Maryland.
In March of 1662 William Barton Jr. assigns his rights to a certain tract of land to Thomas Smoot, his brother in law, for the use of William Hungerford Jr, son of William Hungerford deceased. This same land had been assigned by William Smoot to William Barton Jr. in 1658, and William Smoot had in turn had assigned him by John Lugar Jr. in 1649. (See Charles County Land Records, MSA CE 82-1, Liber A, pg 242-244) As we have seen this Thomas Smoot had a sister named Ann who would be of the right age to be married to William Barton Jr. in 1662. In addition, there is evidence that William Smoot and Thomas Smoot were heavily involved in the care of William Hungerford Jr., son of the deceased William Hungerford who left a widow named Ann who married William Barton, Jr. As we have just seen, Thomas Smoot took over the care of the child from William Barton Jr.
In addition on Nov 14, 1665 (see Charles County Land Records, book B p 246a) Thomas Smoot gave up the estate and the care of the child William Hungerford Jr. to Thomas’ father, William Smoot. All of this suggests that William Hungerford Jr. was a Smoot.
Richard Smoot, son of William Smoot, in his 1676 will calls William Barton Jr. his brother and names him as a coexecutor of the will. This fits well with the assumption that Ann Smoot was the Ann Hungerford who was married to William Barton Jr by 1661.
The birth records of William Barton Jr.’s children give some indication of who their mothers were. Grace Barton was born and died in August of 1659. (CCLR, LIBP, pg 204) William Barton was born 29 June 1662. (CCLR, LIBP, pg 204) These two were undoubtedly the children of William Barton Jr. and Ann Smoot. Ann (Smoot) Barton gave a deposition, alluded to previously, in June 1661, so it seems highly unlikely that Ann would have died and that William Barton would then have married his second known wife, Mary, in enough time to have a son born by June of 1662.
In 1667, (CCLR, LIBER C p. 252) shows that an unidentified child was born to William Barton Jr. on March 25. The same record on p. 260 shows that he had a son named William Barton on February 27, 1667. This, of course, isn’t possible. Our best guess is that the March 25 record refers to a baptism and the February 27 record refers to when he was actually born. If this is true, then the William Barton born in 1662 was likely dead since you normally wouldn’t give the name of a living child who is only 5 years old to a newborn.
In 1671/62 Elizabeth, daughter of William Barton Jr., was born on Feb. 27. (CCLR, LIBER E, pg 729)
There are no known birth records for Mary and Margaret. In 1688 William Barton Jr. and Mary M., his wife, give land to Mary, Margaret and Elizabeth and their respective husbands. It’s likely that the three sisters couldn’t have been more than 5-6 years apart, thus Mary and Margaret were probably born somewhere between 1666 and 1671. It is important to note that Margaret could not have been Ann (Smoot) Barton’s child, since Margaret married William Hungerford Jr. who was definitely Ann (Smoot, Hungerford) Barton’s child by her first husband William Hungerford. If Margaret was born before Elizabeth, then Elizabeth was also not Ann (Smoot) Barton’s child. This leaves Mary, who if also close in age to Margaret and Elizabeth, as not a likely daughter of Ann (Smoot) Barton.
It is also worth noting that whereas Ann (Smoot) Barton named her first born daughter Grace, after Ann’s mother, the other daughters are not named after anyone in the Ann Smoot’s family.
Finally, we need to cope with the fact that Richard Smoot in his 1676 will calls William Barton Jr. his brother. Our interpretation of this is that this was so because Ann Smoot was Richard’s sister and she had married William Barton Jr. This would seem to imply that Ann was alive in 1676, in which case all of William Barton Jr.’s children were also Ann’s, which we have seen in the case of Margaret was impossible. We are fairly well convinced that Ann could have already died by 1676 and that William Barton Jr. would have continued to be considered a brother-in-law of Richard Smoot. In that 1676 will, Richard Smoot also refers to Robert Rowland as his brother-in-law. This is because Jane Batten had been married to Richard’s brother Thomas. Jane had married Robert Rowland by 1676 after Thomas had died. Thus not only did the title survive the death of the brother, but it was transferred to the sister-in-law’s new husband!
For all of these reasons we believe that Mary M. And not Ann Smoot was Mary Barton’s mother.

Chase Brooke  Oct 2012

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