Submitted by Descendants: The SUTTON, LEITNER, & McINTOSH Families
William Barber was born in 1805 in southeast Georgia. He was a Private in the First Regiment, also known as Warren’s Regiment, in the Florida Militia starting on 13 June 1837. He served as a volunteer soldier from the State of Florida during the Florida Indian War during this time.
On a petition submitted to the United States Congress in April 1840, Mr. William Barber is listed as a petitioner – as a resident of St. Augustine, Florida – requesting East Florida to be a distinct and separate Territory.
One can locate Mr. William Barber listed on the 1840 census records of Nassau County, Florida. And, sadly, Mr. Barber’s death is reported in Southern Recorder – a newspaper from Milledgeville, Georgia. The newspaper article describes a bloody scene. Mr. Barber was shot twice, stabbed multiple times, scalped, and stripped of his clothes by Indians. Barber’s wife, Susan, heard rifle sounds and ran towards her husband. He knew she was in danger as well, and said to her, “I am done, save yourself and your children”. She and the children fled the farm. At this time, the Indians were, “in the house and plundering it of whatever they could carry off”. It appears that a young daughter ran inside the house during this time to get the infant boy. The paper stated that at first the Indians were too busy to notice her, but then yelled at her. Her bravery continued and she and the baby fled to safety to her mother and the rest of the children. This daughter is reported in family history as Rhoda Barber – my great-great-grandmother.
Susan Barber and her children lived near William’s brother, Moses Barber in Columbia County, Florida. Susan and her children are listed in the census records of 1850 living next door to Moses. The family eventually settled in Orange County, Florida in 1855.
William W. Barber was first established as a Florida Pioneer in 2011