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Hon. Moses Jerome SHELTON (deceased) was born and raised in that part of Cabell
county, Virginia, now included in Lincoln county, West Virginia. John and Sallie (McComas) Shelton, his parents,
now many years dead, came to this section of the country in 1800. He was born in 1821, and died October 6, 1883.
In Sheridan district, in 1843, he married Melinda Messinger, who was born in Lawrence county, Ohio, in 1828.
She was three years old when her father and mother, Nicholas and Mary (Wilhi~s) Messinger, brought their little
family to this part of Virginia. The ten children of Mr. and Mrs. Shelton are recorded: Lurany, born June 28,
1844, lives in Pike county, Kentucky; Ann E., August 10, 1847; Susan W., June 3, 1849; Albert G., December 25,
1852, died in 1854; Henry C., May 12, 1854; Mary A., December 16, 1856; William W., October 26, 1859; Martha J.,
December 1, 1861, lives in Somerset, Kentucky; Robert S., September 26, 1866; Stella M., June 27, 1869. At the
age of twenty-one Mr. Shelton was elected magistrate, and he held the rank of major in the Virginia militia.
He was twelve years prosecuting attorney of Lincoln county, and represented the seventh senatorial district
two terms. At the time of his death he held the notarial seal, but gave his attention principally to the
cultivation of his estate of a thousand acres, on Guyan and Mud rivers. He was also engaged in the work of
the ministry, having been licensed to preach in the Church of Christ in 1879. Hamlin, Lincoln county, West
Virginia, is the postoffice address of the family.
Extracted from West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia, a reprint of Hardesty's Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia Lincoln County, WV, Biographies List, 1884.