Donald Clinton Barton (1889-1939)

Biography
Barton was born at Stow, Massachusetts, June 29, 1889, the son of George Hunt and Eva (Beede) Barton. His Puritan ancestry goes back on his father's side to Resolvit White, an older brother of Peregrine White, who came to America on the Mayflower. Barton attended Cambridge Latin School as a boy, completing the 5-year course in 4 years, and winning a scholarship bestowed upon the student who obtained the highest average grade for the whole course. His father, himself a geologist and, according to Alfred C. Lane, the first elected fellow in the Geological Society of America had been denied early schooling and had entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (where he subsequently became professor of geology) only after his 21st birthday. Conscious of his own early handicaps, he encouraged his son in his pursuit of an education. Before he was 10 years old, the boy attended his father on geological field trips, and while he was still in Latin School he enrolled in and passed with credit college courses in structural geology, historical geology, and mineralogy. AAPG Bulletin - December 1939