1806–10 Mar. 1865
Although Barton opposed both slavery and secession, he maintained a neutral position in the war and local Confederate garrisons, respecting his position, left him alone. Union gunboat officers operating on the Chowan also understood Barton's situation and did not annoy him, although they were sometimes able to deliver to him mail or news from his friends and relations in the North. In the meantime, his relations, particularly his sister Clara, plotted scheme after scheme for bringing him out of North Carolina, only to be blocked by his determination to maintain his lonely vigil at Bartonsville.
In 1864, with the families of Confederate soldiers in Hertford, as elsewhere in the South, beginning to suffer from want of supplies, Barton and a few sympathetic friends arranged to bring supplies from Norfolk in exchange for their own cotton. With a pass from Union officers who controlled the eastern side of the Chowan, Barton himself made several trips by wagon into Pasquotank County, where Union agents purchased his cotton and gave him bacon and other commodities for distribution to the poor of Hertford County. On one such mission, Barton was arrested by Union authorities on suspicion of being a Confederate agent, imprisoned at Norfolk, and mistreated by prison officials. His health broke, and, by the time Clara was able to learn of his condition and have him freed, he was near death. He joined her at a field hospital near Richmond, and the two of them went to her home in Washington, D.C., where he died. His sister accompanied the remains to Oxford, Mass., where Stephen was buried in the Barton family cemetery. Three weeks later, on 1 Apr., a Union cavalry patrol arrived at Bartonsville and, on the assumption that it was Confederate property, burned the entire establishment.
Stephen Barton was married to Elizabeth Rich of Charleston, Mass., and by her had one son, Samuel R. Barton, who assisted him in creating the mill town at Bartonsville.