Preacher...Not the kind that preached for the Money

HIRAM KILBORN

"A Baptist Preacher, and not the kind that preached for the money in it."

Hiram Kilborn was a native of Canada.  Not certain when he immigrated to the United States.  He was in Peoria, Illinois in 1841, when he married twenty-one year old, Adelia (known as Delia) Ann Knowles a native of Vermont, on 12 Dec 1841.  The couple was still in Peoria in 1850.  Hiram reported his occupation as a carpenter for the 1850 census.  Hiram and Delia have two sons, George, age 6, and John, age 3.

1850 US Federal Census, Peoria, Illinois, page 240A

Hiram moved his family to Texas sometime between 1852 and 1856.  In 1860, Hiram and his family can be found living in Cooke County, Texas.  Kilborn is living next to Eli Scott, one of the men who would later be hanged in the Gainesville Hanging.  Clark, also, refers to Hiram Kilborn as being a 'near neighbor.'  Kilborn reported his occupation as a farmer in 1860.  Hiram and Delia have two more children by 1860; a daughter, Frances, and a son, Wilson.

1860 US Federal Census, Cooke, Texas, pag 227



Hiram seems to have been very involved in the community.  McCaslin refers to Kilborn as a Baptist lay minister and states in the footnote on page 67 of his book, Tainted Breeze: "Kilborn became a school trustee and a road overseer for Cooke County in September, 1858, a supervisor for the polling station at Henry Cockrum's mill in the fall of 1860, and again for the polling station at John Ware's house in the fall of 1860 and in August, 1862."

James Lemuel Clark, in his Recollections, writes the following about Kilborn:

"The next neighbor I will name was Hiram kilborn.  He had a homestead of 320 acres of land patened to him by the state.  Tho tha did not hang him.  He was shot an killed by some of the Bourland men in trying to git a way.  His foalks never got his body and did not no what tha dun with it.  He Kilborn was a Babtist preacher, and not one of the kind that preached for the money that was in it.  He was the oanly Babtist preacher in this country when we came here.  I am informed by Frank Foremen that [he] helped to bury Kilborn."

Hiram's son, George, was away fighting for the Confederate Army, when Hiram was shot and killed by the Confederate group in Cooke County,   James L. Clark was serving in the same Confederate unit.  In one of Clark's letters home to his family, dated 20 Mar 1863, he writes: "Mother tell George Kilborns folks that he is still with us but it not verry well.  He has a verry bad cough and it is thought by some that he has Consumption.  But he is able to go about.  He has not been able to do any duty since he left home but has been able to stay with us."  George A. Kilborn appened the following note to James Lemuel Clark's letter: "Be sure and tell my Father and Mother to write to me as soon as you get this letter and tell them where I am.  I send my best respects to you and your family.  Geo. A. Kilborn."

It appears that while George Kilborn was away fighting for the Confederate Army, he did not know that his father had been killed by the Cooke County confederates.  No records for George have been found after this time, so he most likely died while serving in the Confederate Army.  That would mean that his mother lost both her husband and son during the Civil War.

After Hiram's death at the hands of the Confederate militia, his widow and family moved to Bourban County, Kansas.  Delia and her three younger children can be found in the 1870 census for Bourbon County.

1870 US Federal Census, Fort Scott, Bourbon County, Kansas, page 491B

Delia died in 1879 and was buried in the Mount Orum Cemetery, Bourbon County, Kansas. Son, John, married and had a family and continued to live in Bourbon County. Son, Wilson, moved around a bit, ending up in Colorado.