Bartholomew (Batt) Barrow was born in Enfield, Halifax County, North Carolina on October 16, 1766, the forth child of William Barrow Jr and Olivia Ruffin Barrow.
Shortly after his birth his family moved to South Carolina, where Batt spent most of his youth. After the American Revolution he returned to Halifax County and married Ascension Slatter in 1797. He lived on the land of his parents on the North side of Fishing Creek and eventually bought out his siblings inherited shares.
Batt and Ascension had 4 children: Robert Ruffin, Elizabeth Ruffin, William Bennett and Ann Bennett Barrow. Ascension died in 1803 and is probably buried in the Barrow family graveyard by Fishing Creek. He later had two children: David and Mary Ann, by a marriage to a friend’s widow (Bertha Brantley).
In 1820 Bartholomew sold his farm in North Carolina except for one acre of the family graveyard and moved to Feliciana Parishes of Louisiana where he purchased 1,025 arpents of land from his brother William III of Highland for $20,000, the place which would become Afton Villa. Batt was a very successful planter and lived conservatively, soon owning large land holdings in Feliciana and Point Coupee parishes. He built the first house on Afton Villa similar to the one built by his son at Residence Plantation in 1852. Robert Ruffin Barrow moved from North Carolina with his father Batt and lived with him at Afton Villa until 1828 when Batt gave Ruffin $1,800 and two Negroes to purchase property in Terrebonne parish from Jim Bowie that would later become Residence Plantation.
