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Thomas Kelton [1652]
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James Kelton

Robert Kelton [1724]
   William Kelton
   Dr. Leslie Kelton
   Robert Kelton
   David Kelton

Robert Kelton [1786]
   O.P. Kelton
   Mark A. Kelton
   Robert F. Kelton
   Benjamin F. Kelton

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Mark Anthony Kelton was the only child of O.P. and Sarah Kelton, born about 1842. His father had been judged a lunatic by the time Mark was six. He was reared by his mother with his stepsister and stepbrother, Jane and Joe Hardin. When Mark was 16, he was attending the Belton School, which met at the Presbyterian Church under the direction of Professor E.W. Kinman. Kinman, the principal, "supervised a curriculum that was heavy on declamation. To display his polished young pupils, the professor presented a public program titled `Labor Conquers.'" Mark gave a declamation on Massachusetts and South Carolina at the exhibition, which was held on Friday, October 15, 1858.[1]

The following year Mark was on the roll of men who were in the Independent Blues, which was organized on March 29, 1859, under the leadership of John Henry Brown, who was then living in Belton. "These rangers went out in squads, usually of six men each and remained in the field about eight days each. The service lasted from March 29 to May 17, 1859," according to George W. Tyler's The History of Bell County. When the Reserve Indians were removed from the upper Brazos to Fort Cobb in the Indian Territory, Mark was among those who followed the Indians as far as the Red River in 1859. When Brown and his men returned from the Red River, Brown immediately set about organizing a scouting company called the "Bell County Rovers," which was created to watch for Indians, Mark's name appears as a private on the roll of the organizing meetings held in Belton on September 14 and 24, 1859.[2]

Mark A. Kelton was one of seven members of the Baylor University's male department Class of 1861, at the time the largest class of male students at the Independence institution. When a split between the faculty and administration resulted in the faculty resigning to accept positions and moving to Waco University, the six male students refused their degrees from Baylor and were awarded bachelor of philosophy degrees in September 1861 from Waco University. (Baylor and Waco universities were merged in 1885 at Waco as Baylor University.) Mark is listed among the members of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, which briefly had a chapter at Baylor.[3]

Mark's Bell County military experience must have been valuable because in November 1861 Mark was appointed as a second lieutenant in Company F of the Sixth Infantry Regiment of Texas in the Confederate Army at Camp Henry McCoulloch in Victoria, Texas. When his regiment was moved to Arkansas in July 1862, Lt. Kelton was left sick in Bowie County, Texas, but was back with his unit by August and it was stationed at the Arkansas Post by September 1862.[4]

At the end of the war, Mark was a member of the 6th Texas Infantry and 15th Texas Cavalry (dismounted) Consolidated, Granbury's Texas Brigade. As the troops presented themselves for parole, most gave up their banners. Instead Mark removed the Texas battle flag from its staff and wrapped it around his body under his uniform and returned home with the flag. He is given credit for donating the flag to the State Archives in 1885, where it has been stored ever since, though various members of the brigade had stored it. See a picture of the flag at the State Archives web site.[5]

In 1866, Mark gave an oration "unsurpassed for eloquence and chaste and classic diction" at the commencement exercises of Waco University.[6] In 1867, the Bell County Police Court, which administered the county, established 23 school districts with a three-member board of examiners, which included Mark Kelton.[7]

By 1870, Mark was a 27-year-old attorney with a law office on School Street in Ukiah, Mendocino County in northwest California. Between 1870 and 1873, he served two terms as district attorney in Mendocino County.[8]

Mark and Mary Ann Elizabeth Ley, the daughter of Henry and Lucy Ley, were married on September 20, 1871, with T.S. Burnet, preacher of the gospel, presiding.[9] Mark and Mary Ann had three children -- Julian O., born in July 1872, Genevieve E., born in August 1875, and Eugenie J., born in about 1878, who is not mentioned in an 1890 letter but appears in a 1910 cenus record. Mark and Mary Ann were married, though Mark had moved to Oregon by 1880. Mary Ann was a businesswoman and "one of the best known of Ukiah's teachers. She was universally respected and esteemed by the hundreds who attended her classes . . . . " Mary Ann later married William D. White, and they moved to Berkeley.[10]

In 1877-78, Mark was listed as a student, mostly likely at Waco University.[11] By the time the census was taken in 1880, Mark had moved to Lakeview, Oregon, where he was a lawyer, but without a family. He appears in the 1883-84 Waco University list of alumni as "Mark A. Kelton, Esq., Lake View, On." Within a few years, Mark was listed on an alumni roster as "address unknown."[12] An entry in a 1920 directory of ex-students, suggests that Mark might have moved sometime after 1884 to "Virginia, Nevada" and was listed as "deceased" by 1920.[13]

The reality is that Mark was living in Lakeview, Oregon, in 1889, because he wrote a letter on Lakeview Recorder's Office stationery to his lawyer in Belton, Texas, about land that was part of his mother's estate after her recent death.[14] He was still married to Mary Ann Kelton, though she was living in Ukiah, California. In 1890, she wrote to the lawyers in Belton that Mark had died suddenly, and she was unable to recover his important papers, which contained information they needed.[15] Mark Kelton is buried in the Lakeview IOOF Cemetery in Lakeview, Oregon.[16]

A memorial brick was placed by the author in 1996 in the Sesquicentennial Walkway at Baylor University to memorialize Mark Kelton.

Sources

[2] George W. Tyler, The History of Bell County (Belton, Texas: Dayton Kelley), p. 187-190.

[3] J.M. Carroll, A History of Texas Baptists (Dallas: Baptist Standard Publishing Co., 1923), p. 242, and John Robert Guemple, A History of Waco University, Thesis Research, p. 33. A list of Confederate and Union soliders from the Civil who were members of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity appears at http://www.phigam.org/history/Lists/confed.htm.

[4] Service record of Mark A. Kelton, Company F, 6th Texas Infantry, in the National Archives.

[5] Robert Mayberry Jr., Texas Flags (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2001), pp. 87, 106-107. State Archives web site at http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/treasures/flagsandmaps/flags/historic-flags.html.

[6] A History of Texas Baptists, pp. 409.

[7] The History of Bell County, p. 256.

[8] Political History of Mendocino County, p. 314. Courtesy of the Held-Poage Research Library, Ukiah, California.

[9] Menochino County (Calif.) Marriage Index, Men, Book 1, 1859-1893 A through M, page 342.

[10]California 1910 Soundex, Berkeley, Alameda County, California, and "Mrs. W.D. White Dies Suddenly At Berkeley," article from Ukiah (Calif.) Dispatch Democrat, April 5, 1918, page 1, col. 1.

[11] A.J. Armstrong, Editor, The Baylor Bulletin: A Directory of Ex-Students of the College of Arts and Sciences of Baylor University, (Waco, Texas: Baylor University, August 1920), p. 183, from the Texas Collection, Baylor University. The directory does not distinguish between Baylor and Waco Universities.

[12] A History of Waco University, Appendix B listing graduates of Waco University, taken from the Catalog of Waco University, 1883-84.

[13] The Baylor Bulletin: A Directory of Ex-Students, 1920, p. 183.

[14] Letter to Montieth & Hall law firm, which is part of the Kelsey Collection, written by Mark A Kelton on stationery of the Lakeview Recorder's Office, June 14, 1889.

[15] Letters to Monteith & Hall law firm, which are part of the Kelsey Collection, written by Mrs. M.A. Kelton between 1890 and 1895.

[16] Lake County Genealogical web site, http://www.rootsweb.com/~orlake/index.html

O.P. Kelton [1814] Story

Mark Kelton Register

Mark Kelton's Memorial Brick