Person:Ruth Cready (1)

Joseph Barton was born June 6, 1823 in Pittsburgh, the son of Scottish immigrant Robert Barton and his English wife Mary Percival Barton. On June 9, 1847 Joseph married Ruth Ann and they made their home in Allegheny County near Harmarsville. Joseph was a farmer and owned land on Twelve Mile Island in the Allegheny River which he cultivated in addition to his Harmarsville farm. Ruth Ann Cready (called Ann) was the daughter of John Cready and Sarah Hickey Cready who settled at Six-Mile Ferry on the Monongahela River. Her grandfather, Johannes Crede, a Hessian soldier who elected to remain in this country after the Revolutionary War was an early settler of Pittsburgh.Joseph and Ann had twelve children, Mary Agnes (m. Frank Kohen); Catharine (m. 1st Henry Wilson and 2nd John Hawkins, widower of her sister Ella); John C.; Charles B.; Peter B.; Ellen A. “Ella” [m. John Hawkins); Emma J.; Elizabeth (m. Hiram Hetherington); Anna A. (m. James Lowery); William R. (m. Mary Glesencamp); Irene V. “Bertie” (m. Cornelius Casey; and Emma J. (b. 1869 and named for her deceased sister. This Emma lived only three years.)

Of their twelve children, four (John, Charles, Peter and the first Emma) died within less than a month in October/November of 1862, perhaps of smallpox which was epidemic in the area at that time. Ella died in childbirth and the younger Emma, died at age three.

Ann Cready Barton died August 6, 1903 and Joseph Barton died August 24, 1909. They are both buried at the Henderson Cemetery in Allegheny County.