Fernando and Sophia Kelton built this Greek Revival and Italianate mansion on Town Street in 1852, and it welcomes you today as the Kelton House Museum and Garden. This house on Town Street was built in 1852 by Fernando Cortez Kelton and his wife, Sophia Langdon Stone Kelton. Fernando was a merchant from Vermont who rose to prominence in Columbus as a drygoods wholesaler.
The museum was later established by the Junior League of Columbus to promote an understanding of daily life, customs, and decorative arts in 19th-century Columbus and to educate visitors about the Underground Railroad. The Keltons were fervent abolitionists and used their home as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Fernando Kelton’s reputation for that work was such that he was selected to be a pallbearer at the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln when Lincoln’s remains were brought to Columbus on their way to Illinois for burial.
Their eldest son Oscar joined the 95th Ohio Infantry, Company A in 1862 to fight against slavery, rose to first lieutenant, and was killed in the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads on June 10, 1864. In that same year the Keltons took in Martha Hartway, a young runaway slave from Virginia. Notice the garden and Town Street framing a house that once sheltered runaways on the Underground Railroad.