The Shelton Family

By Kelly Warman-Stallings

(Published to "Window to the Past" website, March 2015)

The Shelton family of Miller County comes from a long lineage of exciting English ancestry - from Crusaders, Knights and Barons to New World immigrants. Theirs is an interesting family history that began with the birth of Robert de Sheldonne I who was born in England in 1033 and died there in 1070. The Shelton clan resided in Suffolk County, England for a few generations and later Sir John De Shelton I (1080-1150) - 1st Baron of Shelton - migrated into Norfolk County before the turn of the 12th century. For the next 480+ years the Shelton family would reside over Shelton Manor, built before the year 1145... at least for the Miller County branch of Sheltons who came to America in the early 1600s. Upon Thomas Shelton's arrival [before 1630] in the New World he settled in Colonial Maryland; Thomas was born 1606 in England and died 24 Oct 1683 in Cecil County, Maryland. His son, James Shelton (1630-1720), would leave Maryland in the mid-late 1600s and move into Colonial Viginina and there the family remained for the next 140+ years.

John Shelton, son of Roderick Shelton (1754-1816) and Sarah Ursula Briggs (1755-1820) who moved to North Carolina sometime in the late 1700s, was born in Shelton Laurel, North Carolina in 1778. John would leave the coastal state of North Carolina and head towards Tennessee around the turn of the 19th century and laid down temporary roots in McMinn County. Sometime in the mid 1830s John uprooted his family once again and migrated into Miller County, Missouri and there laid down permanent roots. John Shelton's family consisted of his wife, Elizabeth [Smith] (1779-1855) and nine children, including his son, George Washington Shelton (my great-gr-gr-gr grandfather). John died 31 July 1855 and his wife, Elizabeth, died sometime after 1855. Both are most likely buried in unmarked graves in Duncan Cemetery, which is located near the Miller/Maries County line.

George Washington Shelton was born in McMinn County, Tennessee around 1810. He married 1) Canzada Roberds around 1831 and 2) Celia Burks on 10 April 1834. Both marriages were performed in McMinn County, Tennessee. Canzada evidently died as a young woman before George left Tennessee for Missouri with his second wife and two young sons (by first wife, Canzada) - John Shelton (1832-1922) and Edmund F. Shelton (1834-1836). The Shelton family settled in eastern Richwoods township before 1840 and were most likely farmers by trade. I am sure that George and Celia had children of their own; even though the following names are a calculated guess, I believe they were: 1) Nancy Emeline (1843-1929); 2) Allen Taylor (1852-1934); 3) Sarah Adeline (1855-1953).

George Washington Shelton died in Miller County on 20 July 1860. It is not known if his widow, Celia (Burks) Shelton, remarried but she did live another 38 years after his death.

Celia died in 1898 and is buried beside George in the Duncan Cemetery in eastern Miller County, close to the Maries County line... not too far from where they had homesteaded since the early 1800s. The majority of their children remained in the area and lived in the counties of Miller, Maries and Pulaski.

Edmund F. Shelton, youngest son of George and Canzada, was born in Tennessee in 1834. His mother died the same year he was born and it's possible she died in childbirth. He grew up in Miller County, Missouri during his formative years and later married Clarissa Jane Lawson 20 June 1858. Clarissa was the daughter of Andrew Lawson (1812-1846) and Sarah Rowden (1816-1891). Edmund was a farmer according to the census records and most likely fought in the Civil War as a young adult (he registered with the draft between 1863-65). Edmund and Clarissa had eight children:

1- Cecelia A. (1859-1898); 2- Sarah E. (1860-1880); 3- James P. (1865-1940); 4- Mary C. (1870-?); 5- Louise P. (1872-1919); 6- William C. (1874-?); 7- Nancy A. (1879-?); and, 8- Clara J. (1881-1968).

Cecelia Adeline Shelton, born in May of 1859, was my last direct Shelton ancestor. She married James Boyd (1859-1906), son of Greenville and Jane (Freeman) Boyd, who once resided in the vicinity between St. Anthony and St. Elizabeth in the rolling hills of the Big Tavern Creek valley. Cecelia and James had 9 children:

Isabel May (1883-?)

Leonard Ivory (1884-?)

Conard (1886-1972)

Sarah Eliza (1888-1969)

Minnie Jane (1890-1980)

Azalia (1893-?)

Walter (c/1895-?)

Nellie/Nollie (c/1897-?)

Clara Alta (1898-1899)

Pictured from left to right: Sarah (Boyd) Smith, Conard Boyd, Minnie (Boyd) Jones Simmons, and Walter Boyd. Picture was taken c/1950s.

Cecelia (Shelton) Boyd had left Miller County prior to 1897 with her husband and children and traveled to the Chickasaw Indian Nation in Oklahoma. It was not long after giving birth to her 9th child that Cecelia died in 1898, leaving James Boyd a widow with many young children. James Boyd, after the death of his wife, returned to Miller County not long afterwards. He died in 1906, leaving his older children to rear his younger children. My great-grandmother, Sarah (Boyd) Smith was one of the older children of Cecelia and James Boyd.