MELTON REUNION & Graveyard Working

 The annual Melton Reunion is held every year on the Saturday before the third Sunday in May at the Melton Cemetery located south of Winnfield. Melton descendants are urged to come and be with us at this time. Come early for fellowship. A meeting will be held at 11 o'clock and a delicious covered dish lunch is promised at noon.

The Melton Reunion is held annually for the descendants of Madison McKinney "Quinn" Melton, who migrated from Georgia in 1859 with his wife, Caroline Swain. They came to Winn Parish in a covered wagon train led by his brother, Jeff Melton.

By 1858 Jeff Melton, who was 30 years old and still single, had been living in Winn Parish about eight years. He had built a house, cleared several fields along Cedar Creek, acquired a sizable fortune by selling furs trapped along Cedar Creek and had accumulated a large number of cows and hogs. Those were the days of free range which meant livestock was allowed to roam freely. The woods were full of wild hogs, game and various fur bearing animals. A wild hog belonged to the person who could catch and "mark" it. A "mark" consisted of slashes or crops cut in the hogs ear. Each person had his own special "mark". Woe was the person caught changing a "mark" or stealing a marked hog. Most men carried six shooters or a rifle and it was not uncommon to administer justice on the spot in a dispute. But that's another story.

In 1858 Jeff decided to return to Georgia to get a sizable stash of gold he had salted away and find himself a wife. In the short time he was there he seems to have been a very busy man because he successfully courted and married Frances Swafford as well as convincing his younger brother, Madison and 29 other families to immigrate to Louisiana with him. Among those families were the Baileys, Millings, Swaffords, Teddlies, Killens, Grays, Williams, Hearns, Shumakes and Durhams. Although they traveled by wagon train and the trip took about three months everyone arrived safely. These families produced many solid citizens and hundreds of descendants who still live in Winn Parish today. Jeff Melton was the exception as his only son died in 1863 and Jeff became sick and died in 1864.

Madison and Caroline had eight children. All the Winn parish Meltons are descendants of one of these children.

(based partly on Article 211, Winn Parish as I Have Known it by H. B. Bozeman published in the Winn Parish Enterprise February 2, 1961)

This year the Melton Reunion is on Sat May 17 2025

Next year the Melton Reunion will be on Sat May 16 2026