Martha Walton was born in New Salem NC in 1833. Married Franklin Walton shortly before the civil war at the age of 28. Martha was left an orphan at an early age. She and a twin sister (who stayed in NC) were brought up by an uncle who was a very strict Quaker which grandmother clung to all of her life. We always assumed her ancestors had come over on the Mayflower from England (True via Hester Mahieu and Frances Cooke). She was raised on a farm and spun the material for her clothes. She said that the first dress she ever had made from bought material was her wedding dress.
When the war started, they left the South in a covered wagon to get away from the war. They had 2 little girls at that time who both died of Diphtheria while on their way. They drove through Missouri and stopped long enough to raise a garden one summer. While they were there a covered wagon came along which had a very sick woman who wasn’t able to travel and they couldn’t stop for some reason. They asked Martha to take care of her which she did until she died and buried her there. They settled in Humbolt, KS on a farm on the Neosho river where Robert, Irene (Rena), Mattie and Mary, our mother, were born. When Mary (probably Rena actually) was 9 her father died from the measles. Robert took over the farm until he was married. Then James took over the farming after he married Mary and Alta was born there. James N Baggett ran the race for a homestead in Oklahoma – someone else beat James to the one he had staked and he lost out. When Alta was 2 (1895) , Martha sold the farm in KS and divided the money with her children (around $250 each) and kept $700 for herself and lived off of the interest. Bob, Mary and James, Rena and Emert moved to Oklahoma and settled on farms there where they bought homesteaders rights. Martha had 27 grandchildren. She died in Glencoe Okla where she lived with Rena and Emert Duncan in 1916 at 84. - Notes from Alta Roemer 1974 |
Children
Dierdre J Walton
b. 1859 d. 1864 of diptheria en route to Kansas from North Carolina
Eliza J Walton
b. 1862 d. 1864 of diptheria en route to Kansas from North Carolina
Robert Walton
Martha Ellen Walton
b. 1866 m. James Krouse 1888 d. 1954 - 4 children (Ina, Cleo, Myrtle, Hazel)
Mary Amazon Walton
b. 1869 m. James Newton Baggett 12/12/1889 d. 1952 - 8 children
Irene A Walton
b. 1871 m. Emert Duncan 11/24/1897 d. 1960 - 5 children (Ray, Florence, Oral Kenneth, Dee, Eva)