Talk:Shelton House (Raymond, Mississippi)

Judge Shelton

If anyone is able to find Judge Shelton's full name, please ping me and I will try to find his obituary on Newspapers.com to expand this article. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 13:29, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Samuel JOHN Shelton was an attorney who lived in Raymond during the Civil War (see this article), who owned what was called "now beautiful premises," and was apparently the only "Shelton" in the local bar (see here). Andrew Jameson (talk) 09:19, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Any idea when he died please? I'd like to find his obituary to cross-check multiple RS.Zigzig20s (talk) 09:33, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Ah, here we go: From Find-A-Grave here's John Shelton, who arrived in Raymond in 1837 and died in 1897. Here's his son, Judge John M. Shelton, who was born in 1850 and died in 1926. Andrew Jameson (talk) 09:35, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 09:37, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Note the dates are not quite consistent with Judge Shelton owning the house during the Civil War, but I guess he would have lived there. (More likely, there's some historical confusion between the father and son, them having the same names and all.) Circumstantial evidence indicates this should be the right "Shelton," though. Andrew Jameson (talk) 09:39, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Here's John Shelton's 1897 obituary. I am not sure that we can cite it. It says he had two sons, John M. and William. No mention of "Samuel." Here is J.M. Shelton's 1926 obituary, but again no specific mention of the house. My hunch is that it was built for John Shelton and inherited by John M. Shelton (William Shelton lived in Memphis). But do we have enough RS, or are we just guessing here?Zigzig20s (talk) 09:55, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

OK. My sense is that the most likely explanation here is indeed that John M. Shelton is indeed the "Judge" in "Judge Shelton" and that the NRHP nomination form confounds him with his father. Supporting this is the 1878 article that states that John (not Samuel, who I mistakenly typed earlier) lives in "now beautiful premises" located "on the road from Bolton to Raymond," which would describe the Shelton House. In addition, note that the nom form also says "It is known that Judge Shelton and his wife lived in this house during the Civil War. His wife taught school in this building during that time. Perhaps as early as the 1850's the Sheltons lived here and the addition served as her school." According to the the FAG page, John the elder had two wives, the first of whom (Catherine) died in 1860, and the second (Anna) who he married in 1862. Anna was also a school teacher for many years before her marriage, so whoever wrote the nom form is likely assuming that the person who John married in the 1840s (Catherine) was actually Anna, who was teaching at least into the first part of the Civil War. So the facts do seem to match, but now that's two errors in a short span of the nom (which does not exactly engender confidence). However, I'm not seeing any other "Shelton" in Raymond that could plausibly be of the right age to own a rather nice home during the Civil War, and the assumption that the nom author is confounding the two John Sheltons, and confounding the two Mrs. Sheltons, seems to hold together. I'd give it about a 95% chance that the elder John owned the home, and maybe 75% chance that he passed it on to John M. That conclusion is a synthesis, to be sure, but I wouldn't quite call it Original Research. Admittedly borderline.

Another idea would be to email these people (presumably Rebecca Blackwell Drake) and ask them. Andrew Jameson (talk) 13:07, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I think we need to find another RS. Perhaps we can find old/forgotten books about prominent Mississippians on the Internet Archive?Zigzig20s (talk) 06:49, 20 December 2018 (UTC)