Notes for John Layton

Notes for John Layton

!Maryland Catholics on the Frontier: The Missouri and Texas Settlements, T. J. O'Rourke, 1973, pg 185: "The Layton family is the most recently-arrived in America of the families considered in this book. Only the most important highlights of the life of the progenitor, John Layton, have appeared, even after most careful research. Goodspeed's historical sketches of Perry County, Missouri families in a history of southeastern Missouri (1888), in naming the sons of John Layton, states that he was a native of England. Layton is the name of several small villages in that country and it is quite likely that the ancestors of John Layton obtained their surname by association with a town or an estate of that name just as the Haydens and Fenwicks did. Layton is thus a place name as opposed to names such as Brewer and Tucker, which are occupational in their origin.
The first reference to the Layton family found in Episcopal registers does not imply that they were members of that faith, for Catholics as well as Protestant dissenters were required to register such data in the respective parishes of the established church. A later baptismal record of one of the children of John Layton was found in the Catholic parish in the same vicinity.
By late 1792, and possibly before 1790, the Layton family joined the westward migration of Maryland Catholics and settled in that part of Nelson County, Kentucky which is today Marion County. The 1792 tax lists of Nelson County list John, Joseph, and Zachariah Layton under the spelling Leaton. Two John Laytons appeared in the 1790 census enumeration in Caroline County, Maryland, but neither of them has the proper number of children in appropriate age brackets to be the John Layton under consideration here.
Nelson County was divided in 1792, and the part in which the Laytons resided lay in the new Washington County, where the 1800 census listed Barny, Ignatius, John, John, Sr. and Joseph. (The actual 1800 census of Kentucky was lost and what serves in it's stead is a reconstruction from tax lists).
John Layton, Sr. lived on a one-hundred acre tract of land which was part of a survey of one thousand acres entered by James Ingo Dozier and John E. King. In 1799, the land was rated as third class and the tax list showed six horses in the possession of John Layton.
John Layton, Sr. and three of his sons, Bernard, John and Ignatius, were successful in obtaining Spanish land grants in the Louisiana Territory, where they immigrated by 1803. Book B, pg. 661 of the record of deeds of Washington County, Kentucky, recorded the sale, 1 Nov 1802, by John Layton and Jan, his wife, of their one hundred acres for the sum of one (hundred?) pounds sterling to Charles Thomas Blandford. The land was described as lying on the waters of Hardin's Creek and bounding the lands of William Peake, Thomas Cameron, Robert Peak and William Pike. John signed his surname Leaton and Jane made her mark.
Joseph and Zachariah Layton remained too long in Kentucky to obtain Spanish land grants. Joseph did journey to Missouri to purchase land with the intention of settling on it, he died on his return to Kentucky to bring his family. Zachariah received land from his father. Some of Joseph's descendents remained in Kentucky as late as 1818, moving to Missouri about the same time as the Brewers and the Elders.
Nothing is known of the social origins of John Layton, Sr. but it is safe to say that he instilled in his children a respect for the public trust. His sons were active in the formation of county government, the establishment of Perryville, and the foundation of St. Mary's Seminary. His son John and his descendants Felix Layton, John C. Layton and Vernon Bruckerhoff have served as Missouri state representatives."