William B. Barton

from The New York Times, June 14, 1891:

            WILLIAM B. BARTON.
 General William B. Barton died at 6:40 o'clock last
evening at the Gilsey House og Bright's disease,
complicated with an affection of the lungs, in
the fifty-eighth year of his age. He was the son
of a Presbyterian clergyman of Woodbridge, N.
J., and a graduate of Princeton College.
 The death of Gen. Barton removes a figure
once conspicuous as a brigade commander in
the Army of the Potomac, and latterly prom-
inent in theatrical circles. He was a na-
tive of New-Jersey. At the breaking out 
of the war he entered the service as a Captain
and rose through the successive grades to that
of Brigadier General. He served throughout
the was and was several times wounded. In one
of the engagements before Richmond he was
shot through the lungs, a wound from which he
never fully recovered.
 At the close of the war Gen. Barton went to
Pittsburg, Penn., and for a number of years was
engaged in the construction of street railways
in that city. In 1878, the failure of a bank
crippled him financially and he wound up his
business in Pittsburg and went to California. In
the succeeding year he assumed the manage-
ment of the California Theatre. After vari-
ous successes in a theatrical line in
the West he came to this city and for
a short time occupied the position on
the Mail and Express. Subsequently he
secured a lease of the Bijou Theatre, and, in
conjunction with L. E. Miles of Cincinnati, built
the theatre as it now stands. After the lease
was sold to J. W. Rosenquest he took the play
"Lost in New-York" on the road.
 Gen. Barton's last venture in this city was the
production of "Pippins" at the Broadway Thea=
tre last November. In this play he is reported
to have sunk $20,000. His health soon after
b began to fail, and the doctors advised
a trip to Bermuda. The visit failed
to do him any good. The old wound in his lungs
began to trouble him, and, according to his
physicians, hastened his end.