Barrington was built in 1844 as the home and working plantation of Dr. Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, on land near the townsite of Washington. Historically the farm functioned as a cotton operation, with the Jones household relying on enslaved laborers to plant, cultivate, and harvest cotton and food crops and to tend livestock, following practices recorded in Jones's own daybooks and account ledgers. The farmstead was a self-sufficient agricultural unit typical of mid-1800s Texas, combining field crops, kitchen gardens, and animal husbandry to support the family and generate income. Today Barrington functions very differently: it operates as a living history farm within Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site, administered by the Texas Historical Commission. Costumed interpreters carry out day-to-day 1850s farm chores, including plowing, planting, and harvesting fields and caring for heritage-breed livestock such as cattle, hogs, and fowl similar to those the Jones family would have kept. Visitors can walk the grounds, observe or take part in seasonal farm tasks, and see the original relocated Jones house alongside reconstructed outbuildings. The site's modern purpose is educational and interpretive, using hands-on demonstration to teach visitors about antebellum Texas agriculture and daily life, including honest discussion of the enslaved labor on which the original plantation depended, rather than functioning as a working commercial farm itself.