John Barton Payne

1855 - 1935  (79 years)

• Name	John Barton Payne
  Birth	26 Jan 1855	Pruntytown, Taylor, Virginia, later West Virginia   [1, 2, 3, 4]
  Gender	Male
  Death	24 Jan 1935	Washington, D.C.   [2, 3, 4]
  Burial	Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.   [2, 3]
  Person ID	I35102	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	15 May 2021

  
  

  Father	Dr. Amos Payne,   b. 11 Sep 1808, Fauquier County, Virginia d. 31 Jan 1887, Leeds Manor, Fauquier, Virginia (Age 78 years)
  Mother	Elizabeth Barton Smith,   b. 11 Mar 1817, Orlean, Fauquier, Virginia d. 12 May 1895 (Age 78 years)
  Marriage	18 Apr 1837	Orlean, Fauquier, Virginia   [3]
  Family ID	F20626	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  United States Secretary of the Interior, 1920-21. Wikipedia: Payne was born in Pruntytown, in what is now West Virginia, the son of Elizabeth Barton (née Smith) and Amos Payne. Payne was an attorney and longtime Chicago Democratic politician. Admitted to the bar in 1876 in West Virginia, Payne entered politics five years later as the chairman of the Preston County Democratic Party. He moved to Chicago in 1883, and was elected as a local judge in 1893. After resigning from that post in 1898, he was a senior partner in Winston, Payne, Strawn and Shaw. (A successor firm still exists today.) He was president of Chicago's South Park Board from 1911 to 1924, when Edward J. Kelly, later mayor of Chicago, succeeded him. He married Jennie Byrd in 1913. (She died in 1919.) After the outbreak of World War I, Payne went to Washington, D.C., to act as counsel for the Emergency Fleet Corporation and the national railroad administration. From 1919 through his appointment to Wilson's cabinet in February 1920, Payne was chairman of the U.S. Shipping Board. From October 1921 until his death, Payne was chairman of the American Red Cross. In May 1921 he pledged funds for a permanent structure for the Warrenton Library in Fauquier County, Virginia. He died of pneumonia, following an operation for an appendicitis at 1:06 a.m. January 24, 1935, two days before his 80th birthday -- just early enough for an Associated Press obituary to run in the Chicago Tribune. Known for his work for the Red Cross, Payne's use of the South Park Board to solidify the position of the Chicago Democratic Party has much less noted. Payne tried to bring volunteers and paid staffers of the American Red Cross, and also sent the organization in a new direction, organizing it to support local welfare efforts during both the deflationary period after World War I and the early years of the Depression. Payne's donation of 50 paintings in 1919 and $100,000 in 1932 led to the founding of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia. Some of his personal papers were given to the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William & Mary. In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS John Barton Payne was named in his honor.

  
  

• Sources

  [S5773] Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography ed. Lyon Gardiner Tyler. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1915. [S5774] Find a Grave page for John Barton Payne.. [S5742] The Paynes of Virginia by Brooke Payne. Richmond, Virginia: The William Byrd Press, 1937. [S5761] Withers - America, Or, A Collection of Genealogical Data Concerning the History of the Descendants in the Male Line of James Withers (1680/1 - 1746) of Stafford County, Virginia by Franz V. Recum. New York, 1949.