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Robert Kelton [1724]
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Robert Kelton [1786]
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   Robert F. Kelton
   Benjamin F. Kelton

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Benjamin Franklin Kelton was the fifth child of Robert and Catherine Kelton. He was a farmer in Walker and Montgomery counties of Texas and probably called Frank,[1]. Frank and Rachel Morris Lindley were married in about 1845. Rachel's father, Samuel Lindley, for "love and affection" on July 8, 1848 gave land in Walker County to Frank and Rachel Kelton.[2] A record of Texas school age children in 1854 shows that they had three children in Walker County schools -- Laura, Sarah and Martha Annie.[3] They had three other children -- Robert F., Elijah and Peter C., who was born in 1855.

On June 11, 1855, a W. Tolbert (probably William, brother of Eliza Tolbert) conveyed land near the Danville community in Montgomery County to Frank, and the family apparently moved to Montgomery County.[4] In March 1860, Frank died at the age of 40 after a three-week illness with pneumonia.[5] The following year on February 28, Rachel Kelton and Hamilton Obanion were married; they had four children of their own.

Robert F. Kelton

Benjamin's oldest son was born in 1850 and named Robert F. He was a farmer/stockman who registered his brand on January 6, 1877, in Montgomery County, Texas. Known to his family as "Uncle Bob," he was married three times and had two children.

During the last several years of his life, Bob lived quietly in Madisonville with his daughter, Mamie Kelton Dorman. He died in 1932 at the age of 82 and is buried in the Greenbrier Cemetery near the Concord community in Madison County,[6] as are his daughter and several members of her family.

Peter Curtis Kelton

Peter Curtis Kelton, who was known as Curtis, was the youngest son of Benjamin F. Kelton. He moved to Madison County in the 1870s to seek his fortune. In 1878, he married his sweetheart, Annie Wyler in Montgomery County, taking her back to Madison County where he accumulated large farm acreage and built a home, where he and Annie reared nine children -- Oscar A., Rachel M., Willie Maude, Peter C. Jr., Robbie, Ercel, Frank, Annie Laura and Dora. He was a "well-known, highly respected citizen and a prosperous farmer."[7] Curtis, Annie and other family members are also buried in the Greenbrier Cemetery.[8] Their oldest child, Oscar, was a farmer in the Midway Community. He and his wife Beulah had six children.[9]

Rachel Morris Kelton married Percy Lewis Westmoreland, the fourth of eight children of Dr. Reuben and Julia V. Westmoreland. Reuben was educated at the Atlanta Medical College and served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He came to Madison County in 1866 where he continued to practice medicine.[10]

Footnotes

[1] Benjamin F. Kelton was probably called Frank based on references to Frank Kelton in Montgomery County business accounts in about 1850 and how his widow Rachel gave information about F. Kelton, which appeared in the Mortality Schedule for the Census of 1860. The Herald, Montgomery County Historical and Genealogical Society, Volume 6, Number 3, Fall 1983, p. 116. and Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 1984, p. 8. and Frances Woods, Mortality Schedule of 1860.

[2] Ed Kelton, The Descendents of Robert and Catherine Kelton (Plano, Texas: Ed Kelton, 1989), p. B-16.

[3] Gifford White, Texas Scholastics, 1854-1855. In precinct 5 of Walker County, an H. Kelton had five children of school age (ages 6 to 16). This H. Kelton, who could have been Samuel H. (probably Houston) Kelton. He has not appeared in other documents.

[4] Norma Rutledge Grammer, Compiler, Montgomery County, Texas, Marriage Records 1842-1879 (St. Louis: Ingmere Publications), p. 3.

[5] Frances Woods, Mortality Schedule of 1860.

[6] The dates on Robert F.'s tombstone are "1848-1932," though the 1860 census shows he was born in about 1850 and his sister Sarah was born in 1848. Robert's obituary listed his age as 82, but he would have been 84 if had been born in 1848.

[7] A quote from the Madisonville Meteor as reported in A History of Madison County, Texas (Madisonville, Texas: Madison County Historical Commission, 1986), p. 310.

[8] The Greenbrier Cemetery is a small, rural cemetery located just off Interstate 45 northeast of Madisonville. Families members buried in the cemetery include: Peter Curtis Kelton, Annie J. Kelton, Peter Curtis Kelton Jr., John T. Boyd, Elizabeth Boyd, J.J. Dorman, Mary E. Kelton Dorman, T.J. Dorman, Lela Dorman Sessums and W.B. Sessums. Visit by the author, September 1991. [9] Information about the children of Curtis and Annie Kelton were taken from articles in A History of Madison County, pp. 310-311.

[10] A History of Madison County, pp. 515-516.

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