Barton, Percy Beasley

Submitted by Mike Miller

Percy Beasley Barton. Near the Village of Kahns, in West Baton Rouge Parish, is situated the fine Westover Plantation, and of this property and expansive operations Mr. Barton is the efficient and popular manager.

Mr. Barton was born on the Minnie Plantation in St. James Parish, this state, and is a representative of an old and well known family of that section of Louisiana, his paternal grand father having passed his entire life in this state and having been actively identified with plantation industry in Assumption and St. James parishes, in the former of which he passed the closing years of his life on the St. Chair Plantation. The date of the birth of Percy B. Barton was October 12, 1888, and he is a son of Clarence C. and Lizzie Ella (Beasley) Barton. Clarence C. Barton was born in March, 1860, and his death occurred April 11, 1923, on Little Texas plantation, in Assumption Parish. He was reared in Assumption and St. James parishes, and his early educational advantages included a partial course in the Louisiana State University. He later entered Sewanee University, at Sewanee, Tennessee, and in this institution he continued his studies until his graduation. After his marriage he resided three years on the Minnie Plantation in St. James Parish, and he then purchased the Little Texas Plantation of 3,000 acres in Assumption Parish, where he continued his successful activities as a sugar planter until the close of his life. His political support was given to the republican party, and he was a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as is also his widow, who still remains on the home plantation, she being a native of Assumption Parish, where she was born on Wildwood Plantation. Mr. Barton was not only a Knight Templar Mason but had also received the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and in New Orleans was a Noble of Jerusalem Temple of the Mystic Shrine. Of the children the eldest is Clarence Clifford, who is a progressive sugar planter in Assumption Parish, where also he owns and operates an ice-manufacturing plant; Percy B., of this review, was the next in order of birth; Walter died at the age of five years; Geoffrey Allen is a sugar planter on the St. Thomas Plantation in Assumption Parish ; and Roy Beasley and Lizzie Ella remain with their widowed mother on Little Texas Plantation.

Under the direction of a private tutor in the family home Percy B. Barton received his earlier educational discipline, and thereafter he attended for one year a preparatory school at Bingham, North Carolina. In Soul Business College in the City of New Orleans he was a student in the period of 1906-08, and there he completed a grammar course of one year and a commercial course of two years. In the autumn of 1908 he entered Tulane University, in which he continued his studies one year. Thereafter he was associated in the activities of the Little Texas home plantation until 1912, when he rented St. Emma Plantation, in Ascension Parish. He there continued operations during that and the following year, and then accepted the position of Overseer of St Thomas Plantation where he remained until January 1, 1918. He then purchased an interest in Westover Plantation, in West Baton Rouge Parish. In this connection he is retained as general manager for Milliken & Farwell and his active management of the cultivation of 1,600 acres, the total area of this sugar plantation being 2,000 acres and the plantation having its own sugar refinery, of which Mr. Barton is active manager. The estate is situated seven miles West of Port Allen, with Kahns as its post office address.

In national politics Mr. Barton is aligned loyally with the republican party. but in local politics he supports the democratic party. He is a director of the Westover Planting Company, and is known as one of the progressive business men of the younger generation in West Baton Rouge Parish. He is a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and in the Masonic fraternity his affiliations are with Assumption Lodge No. 307, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Napoleonville; Ascension Chapter No. 49, Royal Arch Masons, at Donaldsonville; Napoleon Commandery No. 14, Knights Templars, at Napoleonville, of which he is a past commander; and Jerusalem Temple of the Mystic Shrine, in the City of New Orleans. He is a member also of Baton Rouge Lodge No. 490, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, in the capital city of his native state.

On the 11th of April, 1916, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Barton and Miss Mary Grace Walton, of Farmville, Virginia. she being a daughter of John F. and Mollie (Vaughan) Walton, the former of whom was a commission merchant at that place and the latter of whom is deceased. The early educational advantages of Mr. And Mrs. Barton included those of the Virginia State Normal School at Farmerville. Mr. and Mrs. Barton have three children, whose names and respective birth-dates are here recorded: John Walton, January 1, 1917; Edith Beasley, August 31, 1919; Harry Vaughan, February 4. 1921.