Joshua Barton was the first Missouri Secretary of State and was involved in three duels with prominent Missouri politicians before being killed in a duel.

Barton, a younger brother of Senator David Barton

David Barton

David Barton is an American evangelical Christian minister, conservative activist and author. He founded WallBuilders, a Texas-based organization with a goal of exposing the claimed US constitutional separation of church and state as a myth...

, was born in Jefferson County, Tennessee

Jefferson County, Tennessee

*...

.

He moved to St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 in 1809. He studied law under Rufus Easton

Rufus Easton

Rufus Easton was a Delegate from the Territory of Missouri.Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Easton completed an academic course....

 who was Missouri Territory's second representative to Congress. After being admitted to the bar he and Edward Bates

Edward Bates

Edward Bates was a U.S. lawyer and statesman. He served as United States Attorney General under Abraham Lincoln from 1861 to 1864...

, Missouri's first attorney general formed a law firm.

Barton was the first Secretary of State but resigned to become district attorney of St. Louis, Missouri.

Duelist

In 1816 he fought a duel with Thomas Hempstead, brother of Edward Hempstead

Edward Hempstead

Edward Hempstead was an American lawyer, pioneer, and one of the early settlers in the new Louisiana Purchase in 1805. Born in New London, Connecticut, Hempstead was the delegate in the U.S. House for the Missouri Territory from 1812 to 1814...

, Missouri's first representative to Congress. Bates was his second. Thomas Hart Benton

Thomas Hart Benton (senator)

Thomas Hart Benton , nicknamed "Old Bullion", was a U.S. Senator from Missouri and a staunch advocate of westward expansion of the United States. He served in the Senate from 1821 to 1851, becoming the first member of that body to serve five terms...

 was Hempstead's second. The duel ended in no bloodshed.

In 1817 he was second to Charles Lucas

Charles Lucas (Missouri)

Charles Lucas was an entrepreneur and legislator in Missouri Territory who was killed in a duel with U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton.-Early life:...

 in duels with Benton in which Lucas was finally killed by the Missouri Senator.

In 1823 his brother opposed the reappointment William Rector as Surveyor General for Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas saying that Rector was hiring his relatives as surveyors and overpaying his surveyors. Rector had overseen the surveying the Louisiana Purchase

Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S...

 including the establishment of the Beginning Point of the Louisiana Purchase Survey

Louisiana Purchase State Park

Louisiana Purchase State Park, in Arkansas near Blackton, Arkansas, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993 under the title Beginning Point of the Louisiana Purchase Survey., It is the point from which the lands acquired through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 were subsequently surveyed. A...

Joshua made the charges in a letter signed "Philo" to the weekly newspaper St. Louis Republican. Rector's brother Thomas Rector contacted the paper and found out that Barton had written the letter and challenged him to a duel.

They met at 6 p.m. on June 30, 1823 on Bloody Island (where the previous duels occurred). Barton was killed instantly and Rector was not hurt. President James Monroe

James Monroe

James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...

did not reappoint Rector.

Thomas was killed in 1825 in a knife fight in St. Louis.