According to David Barton, his grandfather, Chaim Bartnowsky (Hyman Barton), a cobbler, left Narewka for Selma, Alabama, to work in a shoe store that Bartnowsky subsequently purchased from the owner, Louis Gold. Bartnowsky came through the port of Baltimore in 1906. He appears on a ship manifest for the S.S. Brandenburg, which departed from Bremen on 1 February and arrived in Baltimore on 15 February of 1906; a shoemaker from Narewka, 34 years old, he was going to meet Louis Gold in Selma, Alabama. According to the Alabama City Directory of 1906, Gold was the proprietor of City Shoe Shop.

Bartnowsky also appears in the Rosenbaum Steamship Ticket Purchase ledgers for an account opened on 19 December 1905. The Rosenbaum Steamship Company operated in Philadelphia; its ledger books include ticket purchases for the port of Philadelphia, as well as other United States East Coast ports. Just below Bartnowsky's entry is one for a Rochel Edelman, also from Narewka. She was going to Eutaw, Alabama, from Antwerp. Bartnowsky's ticket was purchased by Louis Gold; Edelman's was purchased by a S. J. Gold in Eutaw, Alabama.

In August of 1908 Bartnowsky's wife and six children arrived at the port of New York (Ellis Island) on their way to join him in Selma, Alabama. They, too, had come from Narewka, but had departed from Antwerp. The Rosenbaum Steamship Ticket Purchase ledgers show that in April of 1908 Louis Gold had also purchased tickets for Chaim's family.

Chaim's mother Barucha (Broche) remained in Narewka; her name is listed on the ship manifest as the nearest relative in the country from where Chaim's wife and children had come. Brocha Dovidovna Bortnovskaia on Shkolnaia Street appears in the "List of Payors of Taxes from Estates - Narevka (1913)," and in the "Inventory Description Property Inhabitants of Narevka (1910-1914)."

In Selma, Alabama, where the family settled, Hyman (Chaim) Barton owned the shoe store he had purchased from Louis Gold;  his son Sol later ran Sol's Shoe Store.  In 1923 Morris (Moshe) Barton - David Barton's father  - started Barton's Department Store; later, his brother Sam joined the business.