Joshua Barton Bates (February 29, 1824 – December 27, 1892) was a justice of the

Supreme Court of Missouri The Supreme Court of Missouri is the highest court in the state of Missouri. It was established in 1820 and is located at 207 West High Street in Jefferson City, Missouri. Missouri voters have approved changes in the state's constitution to give ...

from 1862 to 1865. Born in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

,Onward Bates, ''Bates, Et Al. of Virginia and Missouri'' (1914). Bates was the oldest of seventeen children born to

Edward Bates Edward Bates (September 4, 1793 – March 25, 1869) was a lawyer and politician. He represented Missouri in the US House of Representatives and served as the U.S. Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln. A member of the influential ...

and Julia Davenport Coalter (of whom only four lived to adulthood). He was named for his father's law partner,

Joshua Barton Joshua Barton (July 28, 1792 – June 30, 1823) was the first Missouri Secretary of State. He was involved in three duels with prominent Missouri politicians before being killed in a duel. Barton, a younger brother of Senator David Barton, was ...

, who had been killed in a duel. As a young man, Bates "dropped the Joshua from his name and was thenceforth known as Barton Bates". On March 29, 1849, Bates married Caroline Matilda Thatcher, with whom he had ten children. They settled in Cheneaux, Missouri. Bates was one of three judges appointed to the Missouri Supreme Court in 1862 to fill seats vacated by William Scott,

William Barclay Napton William Barclay Napton (1808–1883) was an American politician and jurist from the state of Missouri. A Democrat, Napton served as the state's 4th Attorney General, and multiple terms on the Missouri Supreme Court. Early life William Barclay N ...

, and Ephraim Ewing, who refused to sign

loyalty oath A loyalty oath is a pledge of allegiance to an organization, institution, or state of which an individual is a member. In the United States, such an oath has often indicated that the affiant has not been a member of a particular organization or ...

s swearing loyalty to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. The others appointed with Bates were

William Van Ness Bay William Van Ness Bay (November 23, 1818 – February 10, 1894) was an American attorney and judge from Missouri. He was most notable for serving as U.S. Representative from Missouri from 1849 to 1851, and a judge of the Supreme Court of Missour ...

and John D. S. Dryden; all three appointees were elected to their seats in 1863. Bates served until his resignation in February 1865.Kenneth H. Winn, ''Missouri Law and the American Conscience: Historic Rights and Wrongs'' (2016), p. 92. Bates thereafter served as a railroad president, and spent considerable time administering the will of his uncle, John Coalter, which provided for the upkeep of relatives in South Carolina rendered destitute by the war. This administration continued until the estate was exhausted in 1879.

References

External links

Missouri History portrait page of Judge Barton Bates
Judges of the Supreme Court of Missouri 1824 births 1892 deaths Lawyers from St. Louis 19th-century American judges 19th-century American lawyers {{US-state-judge-stub