Jesse Leonard Pelton, 23, married Cynthia Murry, age 19, at Ottokee,
     Ohio. Four of their 11 children died at an early age. When Agnes was
     7, she went to the creek to play in the water's edge - an alligator
     gar bit her hand, and she died of blook poisoning.
       They heard of the Sharon Valley in Barber County and its promises,
     so they came in a covered wagon and settled near Sharon in 1881. Jesse
     had fought in the Civil War, so they had some financial help from his
     pension.
       A year later their twelfth child, Harvey, was born. Then the youngest
     girl, Cynthia Hanna, climbed to the top of a cupboard, found and ate 
     some poison, and died. They raised seven of their 12 children.
       Alice married Vernon Mitchell, a Barber County man, and lived on a farm
     northwest of Sharon for a while, then moved to Arkansas.
       Jesse Pelton was very active in the Sharon community. He was Justice of
     the Peace, an Elder in the Christian Church, and one of the organizers and
     secretary of AHTA.
       Cynthia Pelton was a Homepathic Doctor and was kept busy in the community
     tending to ailments, injuries, births, and was a friend and good neighbor
     to all. She spent her last years after the death of her husband in 1922,
     with the Harvey Pelton family at Medicine Lodge. Occasionally she would go
     visit her son Leonard's family at Caldwell.
       Jesse Pelton gave each of his children 80 acres of land if they stayed
     home until the age of 21, or they could pay $50 for the land for each
     year they left home before the age 21.
       Only two children settled and stayed in Barber County. Albert married a
     widow, Carrie Hill of Boston. She had 3 daughters - Georgi, Elizabeth and
     Jenny, agest 14, 11 and 7 years. He stayed on the home place with his
     parents.
       Harvey lived all his life in Barber County. He married and raised his
     family at Medicine Lodge. Since he left home before he was 21, he paid
     his father $200 for his 80 acres of land, east of Sharon. This in now
     owned by Orville Pelton of Attica. 
                
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas, pg. 361 
     Submitted by: Opal Pelton White