John Barton m.
Elizabeth Bell
John Barton was
born the 23rd of February, 1806 in Winstanley, Lancashire, England. He was
the son of William Barton and Elizabeth Winstanley.
John married Elizabeth Bell at Haigh Church, near Wigan, Lancashire on September 6, 1835. They had seven sons and two daughters.
He was the superintendent of a large foundry in St. Helens owned by Mr. Robert Daglish. The works were known as Daglish's Foundry and consisted of all that was needed to take in the pig iron and turn out the same a finished engine(stationary); pattern shop, molding shop, fitting shop, blacksmith shop, erecting shop, in short, every kind of shop and machine needed to turn out a finished engine. Each of these shops had its foreman, and John Barton was over all of them. In fact, there was no official between Mr. Daglish and John Barton and to Mr. Daglish alone was he responsible.
John Barton was a natural inventor. He invented the Lantern Valve, a balanced valve for steam engines. He was one of the first, if not the first to cut off the piston rod at the back of the piston thus doing away with one packing gland. He was one of the first to advocate high pressure and high speed engines.
The family emigrated to Utah in 1862. They left St. Helens on Saturday May 3, 1862 for Liverpool where they boarded the sailing boat "Manchester". Captain Trask was the skipper of the Manchester. They set sail Tuesday, May 6, 1862 and landed in New York at Castle Garden on Friday, June 13, 1862, early in the morning after 37 days at sea. Saturday June 14, 1862 they took a train for Albany and west to St Joseph, Missouri. There they took a boat to Florence, Nebraska on June 23. They arrived June25.
It took over a month to prepare for the journey across the plains. They left Florence August 1, 1862 with the Ansel P. Harmon Company with about 500 emigrants. They arrived in Salt Lake City on Sunday, October 5, 1862. They remained in Salt Lake City for about three weeks before moving to Kaysville, Utah arriving October 25th.
They stayed with John S. Smith at first and then moved into an adobe house west of town. In 1863 they bought a lot and built the first brick home in Kaysville.
John passed away August 26, 1874. He was 68 years old.