My Genealogy Hound

William S. Hilton, stockman and farmer, of Barry County, Mo., was born in Scott County, Va., September 10, 1834, son of Enos and Anna B. (Bailey) Hilton, who were born in the Old Dominion, the former in 1800. He was a son of Rev. Samuel and Nancy (Short) Hilton. Our subject’s grandfather, Samuel Hilton, came from North Carolina to Virginia. He was a tiller of the soil and a Baptist preacher, and his father’s people lived in North Carolina, his father’s name being Charles Hilton. William S. Hilton’s paternal great-grandmother was a Miss Bird, who first married a Mr. Short, and four or five children were the result of this union. Then she married a Mr. Greene, and by the latter gentleman became the mother of one son, Gen. James Greene. Our subject’s father, Enos Hilton, was twice married; the first time to Susanna Burks, who died in March, 1833, leaving five children: Mathew, Marton, James, John, Matilda (widow of John Stubblefield). Mathew died at the age of fifty years; John at the age of fifty-eight years. The other three are still living, and reside in Barry County. His second marriage was with Miss Anna B. Bailey, and nine children were the result of this union, eight of whom grew to maturity, and seven are now living: William, Ellin (Peters), Mary J. (Hemphill), Nancy (Neill), Sarah B. (Boran), Enos F., Eliza and Newton. Eliza died at about the age of sixteen. The father and mother were active members of the Church of God. The father was a teacher of the divine law. He began preaching about 1835, and in the fall of 1841 he left Virginia and came to Missouri, and in 1842 he moved to the place where he died. He formerly belonged to the Baptists, and then joined the Church of God, and preached until death. He died November 27, 1884. William S. was about seven years old when he came to Missouri with his parents. He grew to manhood in Barry County, and received little educational advantages, owing to the scarcity of schools at that day. He remained at home until twenty-four years of age, at which time he married and located near the old home place, where he lived until 1864, then came to his present location, which is a farm of 160 acres, with about ninety under cultivation. He served in the Federal army for nearly two years under Capt. Moore, but was discharged in the spring of 1864, owing to disability. Elizabeth (Owen) Hilton, his wife, was born in Clay County, Ind., in 1843, and is the mother of eleven children, ten living: Missouri (Mullin), Marion Lemon, Mary Ann (Suttles), Alfred, M., Rhoda, Harmon, Presley, Nancy, Wiley, Armindia. Nancy died at the age of three years. Mr. Hilton and wife were members of the Church of God, and he belongs to the Farmers’ Alliance.