Richard Bolton

(Born: May 1, 1811 - Died: March 16, 1889)

Richard Richardson Bolton was born at St. Marys, Camden County, GA. His parents were Edwin Hamilton Bolton and Mary Douglas. He graduated from Middlebury College (in Vermont) in 1829, and moved to Mississippi in the 1830s, as an agent of the New York and Mississippi Land Company. He married Martha Lightfoot Dandridge on February 13, 1840. They had seven children. She died June 3, 1850. He married his second wife, Frances Anna Warner, on September 21, 1854. They had three children. He is sometimes listed as Colonel Richard Bolton, having served in the Civil War, with the Pontotoc Dragoons, Company I of the 1st Regiment, Mississippi Cavalry (formed in the Spring of 1862). In 1850, he established a grist mill, which milled flour and functioned as a sawmill, using an engine purchased from a cotton factory in Georgia. He also built a large house, which was called Rosalba. In the 1870s, he apparently ran a drug store in addition to the mill.

A small amount of argument is useful to establish this Bolton as Poe's correspondent. Richard Bolton is listed in the 1850 census for Pontotoc, MS as being 39, and a land agent. His birthplace is noted as Georgia. His wife is listed as Lightfoot Bolton (age 28), and the other five Boltons recorded (all under the age of 10), are presumably their children. No other Bolton’s are listed. Bolton himself was apparently not a subscriber to Graham’s Magazine. In one letter, he mentions having borrowed a copy from “Mr. Reneau.” George G. Reneau is also listed in the 1850 Census, noted also as a land agent, age 36. According to Cases Argued and Decided in the Supreme Court of Mississippi, vol. 26, Coopman v. Bolton, et. al., Reneau and Bolton were both agents for the New York and Mississippi Land Company in 1853. Reneau and Bolton were also both members of the local Presbyterian Church.