Winchester Kelso of Eagle Pass and San Antonio, 1858 to 1925

When Winchester Kelso died at his San Antonio home on November 24, 1925, the Associated Press story printed in the Houston Post called him "the recognized American authority on Mexican laws and judicial procedures," a standing built on a decades-long friendship with Porfirio Díaz through what the report called "the Diaz regime of 34 years."

The Austin American printed a shorter version of the same Associated Press report under the headline "Winchester Kelso, Noted Texas Attorney, Dies at San Antonio." Both papers published it the next day, Wednesday, November 25.

A DeWitt County childhood

Kelso's death certificate gives his birth as May 24, 1858, in DeWitt County, Texas, and names his parents as Tennessee-born John Roebuck Kelso and Ann Chisholm. Its informant signed as "Winchester Kelso, Jr.", probably his son, though the form does not state the relationship. The 1860 census of DeWitt County finds the family together: John R. Kelso, twenty-five, a farmer with $4,000 in personal property, born in Tennessee; Ann, twenty, born in Texas; and Winchester himself, two years old, also born in Texas. The two records disagree about Ann's birthplace. The census, taken when she was an adult in her own household, gives Texas; the death certificate, reported by the informant sixty-five years later, gives Kentucky.

A Richard H. Chisolm, fifty-seven and born in Georgia, headed a household in the same county in 1850 that also included Hardena, forty-six and born in Tennessee, and four younger people recorded as born in Texas: Thornton, nineteen; Bradford, fourteen; Maryann, eight; and an infant Richard, seven months. The census gives no relationships, but the ages suggest a couple and their children. The surname, place and generation make it a likely family for Ann, though no child of about her age on the page bears her name, so the connection is unproved.

An 1870 census of DeWitt County's Precinct 1, enumerated June 1, finds a household headed by "Jno. R. Kelso," thirty-five, a farmer born in Mississippi (the 1860 census and death certificate say Tennessee), with Ann, thirty-one, keeping house, born in Texas, and three children, also born in Texas: Winchester, twelve; "F. H.," ten; and Hardina, three. The initials, ages and given names suggest that "F. H." and Hardina were the brother and sister the San Antonio Light named in 1925, Frank Kelso and Mrs. Dena Kelso Graves, but no record found states that connection.

County attorney, judge, and Díaz's friend

The newspapers that reported Kelso's death filled in a long legal and public career. He was admitted to the bar and elected county attorney of Maverick County before he turned 21, by the Associated Press's account; the Laredo Morning Times gives his age at that election as 22.

By his obituaries' account, in 1886, when he was 28, he was appointed judge of the 28th Judicial District, based at Eagle Pass and said at the time to cover more ground than several Eastern states together. His obituaries credit the appointment to Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross, but Ross did not take office until January 1887, so either the year or the governor is wrong. The district number is wrong too: the Secretary of State's biennial report for 1889 lists him as judge of the 41st Judicial District, at Eagle Pass (the 28th was then John C. Russell's, at Corpus Christi), and on December 13, 1889 he signed a certificate in the murder case of Dick Duncan, later appealed to the United States Supreme Court, as "Dist. Judge 41st Jud. Dist., Texas." It was in that office, the AP account says, that he became the closest American friend of Porfirio Díaz. Kelso went on, by the same account, to be licensed in the Mexican courts and the United States Supreme Court in the early 1890s, to serve as the state's extradition agent under Governor Ross from 1887, and, under Governor James Stephen Hogg in 1893, to examine Spanish land-title archives across Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. In 1896 he let his name stand unopposed for Congress from the Twelfth District, then withdrew it rather than run on the Texas Democrats' free-silver platform.

The newspaper accounts also describe how, in 1884, Kelso organized Eagle Pass's first Masonic lodge and became its first grand master; he was later a charter member of both the Scottish Rite and the Shriners in San Antonio. An Eagle Pass newspaper of April 13, 1895 preserves a small domestic detail from those years: it thanks "Mrs. Winchester Kelso" for a gift of roses from her home on Ceylon Street. She was probably May Joyce Kelso, an identification drawn from later family records rather than the notice itself.

San Antonio and a wide circle

By the obituaries' account, Kelso had lived in San Antonio for about nineteen years by 1925, meaning a move around 1906, and had been active there in civic affairs ever since. He died at his home, 107 West Craig Place, on November 24, 1925, eight days after a heart attack from which he never regained consciousness; his death certificate gives the formal cause as chronic heart disease of five years' duration, certified by Dr. Homer R. Wilson. He was 67.

Five newspapers printed his death the next day. Two of them, the Houston Post and the Austin American, ran the same Associated Press report; the others were the Laredo Morning Times, the San Antonio Express and the San Antonio Light. The San Antonio Express's short notice names his survivors and funeral arrangements: services at Laurel Heights Methodist Church, Masonic escort from Alamo Lodge, and burial in the Masonic plot at Mission Burial Park.

The San Antonio Light's longer account names the same funeral details and a pallbearer list of more than fifty judges, officers and prominent citizens of San Antonio and Eagle Pass, among them "W. B. Clarkson," who may well be William Banton Clarkson, father of the Major H. S. Clarkson named below as Kelso's son-in-law. The Light alone also names two siblings not given in the other four papers: a brother, Frank Kelso of Gonzales, and a sister, Mrs. Dena Kelso Graves of Columbus, Georgia.

Family

Kelso's survivors, named across the newspapers, were his wife, May Joyce Kelso; a son, Winchester Kelso Jr.; and a daughter, Ruth Joyce Kelso, the wife of Herbert Slayden Clarkson of San Antonio, given the rank of Major in the Light's 1925 report, though he is referred to elsewhere by his later rank of Brigadier General. Ruth's death certificate names Winchester Kelso and May Joyce as her parents. Ruth and Herbert's son, Herbert Kelso Clarkson, carried his grandfather's name forward; his life, including his 1943 marriage to Natalee "Cissie" Ligon, is told on Natalee "Cissie" Ligon's story.

What we're still looking for

The marriage record of John Roebuck Kelso and Ann Chisholm has not been found, nor any record of Ann's parentage. We would also like to settle three disagreements: whether Kelso was elected county attorney before 21, as the Associated Press reported, or at 22, as the Laredo Morning Times gave it; whether Ann was born in Texas or Kentucky; and whether John R. Kelso was born in Mississippi, as the 1870 census says, or Tennessee, as the 1860 census and the 1925 death certificate say.

Sources

• Texas Standard Certificate of Death, Winchester Kelso, stamped certificate no. 38231 (handwritten registered no. 2941), Bexar County, filed November 25, 1925. FamilySearch, www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K3SY-SRH; image on this site, shown inline above.
• 1860 U.S. census, DeWitt County, Texas, page 85, dwelling 657, family 646 (John R. Kelso household). FamilySearch, www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MXFJ-MYQ; image on this site, shown inline above.
• 1850 U.S. census, DeWitt County, Texas, dwelling/family 226 (Richard H. Chisolm household). FamilySearch; image on this site, shown inline above.
• 1870 U.S. census, Precinct 1, DeWitt County, Texas, enumerated June 1, 1870 (John R. Kelso household). FamilySearch; image on this site, shown inline above.
• Eagle Pass Guide (Eagle Pass, Texas), vol. 7, no. 33, April 13, 1895, p. 1, local notices.
• Laredo Morning Times, November 25, 1925, p. 5, "Death of Winchester Kelso."
• San Antonio Express, November 25, 1925, p. 14, death notice ("Announcements," "Deaths").
• The Houston Post, November 25, 1925, p. 13, "Winchester Kelso of Santone Dies" (Associated Press).
• The Austin American, November 25, 1925, p. 1, "Winchester Kelso, Noted Texas Attorney, Dies at San Antonio" (an overlapping, shorter Associated Press report).
• San Antonio Light, November 25, 1925, p. 5, "W. Kelso, S.A. Civic Leader Is Dead."
• Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Texas, 1889, "Judicial Officers: District Judges," pp. 287-288 (41. Winchester Kelso, Eagle Pass). archive.org/details/biennialreports06texagoog
• Transcript of record, Dick Duncan, Appellant, vs. T. P. McCall, Sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, Supreme Court of the United States, 1890 (certificate signed at Eagle Pass, December 13, 1889, by Winchester Kelso, "Dist. Judge 41st Jud. Dist., Texas"). archive.org/details/per_scotus_1890_1174