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James Kelton

Robert Kelton [1724]
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Robert Kelton [1786]
   O.P. Kelton
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Robert Kelton's third child, Oliver P. or O.P., emigrated to Texas late in 1835. O.P. was an adventurer, entrepreneur and would-be politician who deeply involved himself in the Texas Revolution.

He "landed at Quintana [near Freeport] in December 1835, being one of 25 men comprising a company of Kentuckians known as the "Kentucky Mustangs" organized by Captain Burr H. Duval."[1] He joined the Republic of Texas Navy as a surgeon, serving on the schooner Invincible.[2] He saw action against the Mexican Navy and was one of three people on the Invincible who "were engaged in free & familiar conversation" with the prisoner Santa Ana soon after his capture at San Jacinto.[3]

In the fall of 1836, Dr. O.P. Kelton opened an office to "attend the duties of his Profession" in the town of Columbia, as advertised in the September issues of the Telegraph and Texas Register, published in Columbia. On the same page of the Telegraph was an advertisement for the town of Houston, "Situated at the head of navigation, on the West Bank of Buffalo Bayou, is now for the first time brought to public noticed because, until now, the proprietors were not ready to offer it to the public, with the advantages of capital and improvements. The town of Houston is located at a point on the river which must ever command the trade of the largest and richest portion of Texas."[4]

In 1838, O.P. received a certificate for a First Class Headright Grant receiving one-third league (about 1,475 acres) of land (the amount for a single person).[5] The certificate was issued on February 3, 1838. He chose land intersected by Buffalo Bayou[6] that lay north of a large, two-league claim of John Austin.[7]

President Mirabeau Lamar appointed O.P. as notary public for the Customs House at Galveston in January 1839. Almost immediately, O.P.'s virtual illiteracy became known and, as a face-saving move, O.P. was appointed in July as coroner.[8]

On September 10, 1840, O.P. married Sarah Ann Looney Hardin, the widow of William Hardin.[9] William had been a member of the Hardin family of Liberty County, for whom Hardin County was named when created in 1858. The Hardins had come to Texas from Tennessee in 1825 to escape arrest in a murder case.

In 1832, William was praised for having brought Juan Davis Bradburn and opposing forces to the negotiating table and was elected to the Convention of 1833 at San Felipe. He and Sarah Ann Looney were married in about 1828. They had two children -- Joe (William J.) born in 1831 and Jane Ophalia born in 1833.[10] In 1836, William was elected judge in Liberty County. Judge and Mrs. Hardin "mercifully treated" Mexican officers and men who were placed in their care after the Battle of San Jacinto.[11]

In 1838 and 1839, O.P. and William were buying lots in the fast developing city of Galveston from the Galveston Land Co.[12] William and Sarah had recently completed a new home in Galveston when William died of yellow fever on June 28, 1839.

[His brother] Frank and his slave John arrived at his brother's bedside just in time to hear William's last words: "Take me to Liberty and bury me beside my father." Frank and Peter Menard arranged for the body to be sent up the river on a sailboat with John, a trip that took a week. Sarah Hardin and the two children traveled on ahead.[13]

O.P. and Sarah were married on September 10, 1840, in Galveston.[14] In about 1842, Mark Anthony Kelton was born to their marriage.

O.P. was a successful businessman in his own right, and was named guardian for Sarah's two children. Sarah was almost eight years his senior and kept her land and money separate from those of O.P.[15] In the census of 1850, she was listed with property valued at $30,000 and O.P. with property worth $20,000 including a lot in Galveston and a gold watch. He had extensive business dealings from Galveston to Walker County. In 1846 O.P. wrote a pamphlet in support of his unsuccessful campaign for Congress from the new state of Texas. In October 1846, O.P. was listed in a deed record as a resident of Marion County, Ala.[16]

On March 1, 1848, the Texas Legislature passed a "special law" authorizing "Sarah Ann Kelton, wife of Oliver P. Kelton, a lunatic . . . to sell and convey her separate property, consisting of real estate and negroes, and otherwise to transact business as a feme sole . . ." In 1850, O.P. was considered a dangerous man and judged a "lunatic" in court. In 1853, he was one of 486 patients admitted to Blackwells Island Lunatic Asylum for "the incurable" in New York City operated by the Almshouse Department of the City of New York, which had "charge of the Almshouse, of the Relief and Support of the Poor, of the County Lunatic Asylum, of the Nurseries for Poor and Destitute Children, the Pentitentiary, and all the city prisons and houses of detention."[17] Over the next several years, his land and possessions were sold to pay for his hospitalization. A Masonic organization in Houston also helped pay his hospital bills.[18]

Sarah moved from Galveston to Central Texas. When Sarah's daughter, Jane, was married to her third cousin, Jim Hardin, in 1856, Sarah was living in Waco. Three years later, Jane's brother Joe argued with and then shot and killed her husband after Jane complained that Jim had been abusing her.[19] By 1860, Sarah was living in Belton, Texas, with Joe, Jane, and Jane's child (William Hardin) and Mark A. Kelton, the son of Sarah and O.P.[20]

Sarah was buried in the South Belton Cemetery. A gravestone was erected in 1936 by the State of Texas to honor her and William Hardin for their kind treatment of Mexican soldiers after the battle of San Jacinto. It reads: "Mrs. Sarah Ann Hardin-Kelton, widow of William Hardin before her marriage to Dr. O.P. Kelton. Many of the Mexican officers and men were placed in the care of Judge and Mrs. Hardin after the victory at San Jacinto and were merficully treated by them."[21]

Sources

[2] The Invincible later hit the breakers at Galveston and broke into pieces. James M. Day, compiler, The Texas Almanac 1857-1873, (Waco: Texian Press, 1967), pp. 390-394.

[3] The Medical Story of Early Texas, p. 348.

[4] Advertisment in Telegraph and Texas Register., Columbia, Texas, September 27, 1836, p. 3. Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo. [5] Land grant certificates were issued by land commissioners who investigated claims for grants. Recipients received different classes of grants for differing amounts of land based on the date when they arrived in Texas and whether they were married or single or for special service to the republic such as fighting in the Battle of San Jacinto. Once a certificate was issued, a recipient would have to find open, unclaimed land, have it surveyed and submit the claim to the General Land Office. The General Land Office would then issue a patent for the land claim if no one had previously received a patent for the land.

[6] The location of this land today is north of downtown Houston, running north from about Interstate 610, which encircles Houston.

[7] John Austin was a hero of the revolution but not related to Moses and Stephen Austin. T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans (New York: Collier Books, 1968), p. 171-172.

[8] Harriet Smithe, editor, Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar (Austin: Texas Library and Historical Commission State Library), Volume II, pp. 232-234, 242-243 and 415 and Compiled Index to Elected and Appointed Officials of the Republic of Texas: 1835-1846 (Austin: State Archives Division, Texas State Library, 1981), p. 70.

[9] In the 1845 Montgomery County tax rolls, O.P is listed as the guardian for the heirs of William Hardin.

[10] William Hardin was probably born in Franklin County, Ga., where his family had moved from South Carolina. They later moved to Maury County, Tennessee, before coming to Texas in 1825. He was the son of Swan and Jerusha Blackburn Hardin. Camilla Davis Trammell, Seven Pines: Its Occupants and Their Letters, 1825-1872 (Houston, 1986), p. 7.

[11] T.C. Richardson, East Texas: Its History and Its Makers (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1940), Volume II, p. 820.

[12] O.P. Kelton purchased one lot valued at $1,350, for $270 in cash, $630 on a receivable bill and receiving a $450 discount; and William Hardin purchased 26 lots all on a receivable bill for $25,160. "Statement of the Sale of Lots in Galveston," Samuel May Williams Papers, file 23-1653, March 12, 1838, Texas History Collection, Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas. [13] Seven Pines, p. 47.

[14] Oradell Crabtree, compiler, Galveston County, Texas, Marriage Records, Book A, 1838-1850 (St. Louis: Frances T. Ingmire, 1985), p. 3. [15] In 1840 Sarah owned in her own name 2,222 acres, 21 lots in Galveston, two slaves and a gold watch. Frank Hardin, as agent for William, held 112,000 acres, 11 lots in Galveston, four slaves, 50 cattle and five horses. Seven Pines, p. 262.

[16] Ed Kelton, The Descendents of Robert and Catherine Kelton (Plano, Texas: Ed Kelton, 1989), p. B-6.

[17] Historical and Statistical Gazetteer of New York State, 1860, reprinted by Heart of the Lakes Publishing, Interlaken, N.Y., 1990, pp. 425-426.

[18] Today the island, located in the East River from Manhattan in New York City, is called Welfare Island. Descendents of Robert and Catherine Kelton, pp. B-8 and B-9.

[19] Seven Pines, p. 270.

[20] Census of 1860, Bell County.

[21] East Texas: Its History and Its Makers, Volume II, p. 820. The history of the Hardin family, Seven Pines, mentions Sarah and her children several times but never even alludes to a second marriage.

O.P. Kelton Register

Mark Anthony Kelton Story

O.P. Kelton Ad in the Telegraph and Texas Register