Barry & Shelton

The Shelton and Barry families were close. They were in very different economic circumstances, but they had sons who were fast friends.

John Shelton was a successful Boston grain merchant who had built the spacious lakeside house that is today the Fitch Home. It was in their front parlor that the leading men of the neighborhood had settled on the name of “Melrose” for their new town. His son, John Shelton, Jr., had received his education at a private Boston academy.

The Barry family had moved down from New Hampshire, but Royal Barry, the family father, had died shortly thereafter.  His son William was raised on the little triangle of land between Main and Lynde Streets by his mother and his aged grandfather, a tailor and immigrant from Alsace. Needing to support his younger siblings, he worked in Boston as a clerk at a cloth dealership.

The boys attended a recruitment meeting in Melrose on July 28th, 1862, and were convinced to enlist. They were both 18. At that time, the Army of the Potomac had suffered a series of disastrous defeats, and the need for manpower was so acute that new recruits were being sent directly to the front. The Melrose recruits were assigned to the 13th Massachusetts Regiment, which would be engaged in almost constant fighting through the months of August and September.

The deadliest day in the military history of the United States came on September 17th, at the Battle of Antietam. Shelton and Barry were there. Their friend, Ambrose Dawes, later recalled the scene: “Some little time after the battle commenced, [Shelton] turned to me…. and said “I am hit in the foot, but shall stick to it….” This was the last time I saw him. Soon after, I saw young Barry fall with a bullet through the forehead…. a bullet hit Shelton in the spine, which caused paralysis in the lower limbs…. We know he lived but about 48 hours, with no friends around him….”

The Shelton family managed to locate both bodies and return them to Melrose. They had died less than two months after joining the army. They are buried near one another in Wyoming Cemetery.