Albert C. Pelton was born on May 30, 1843, in Grand Rapids, Michigan or Canada, the son of Silas Pelton (1819-1899) and Elizabeth Anderson (1823-1904).
Silas left Canada and moved to Michigan along with several family members. He married Elizabeth on January 14, 1840, in Grand Rapids. In 1850 Albert was living in Grand Rapids with his family, and by 1860 he was working as a lumberman and living with his father and living with his family in Grand Rapids’ 4th Ward.
Albert stood 5’0” with hazel eyes, brown hair and a light complexion and was 17 years old and probably still living in Grand Rapids when he enlisted with his parents’ consent in Company A on May 13, 1861. (His father Silas enlisted in Company B. Albert was probably the nephew of Alfred and the cousin of Samuel and may have been related to Andrew Pelton.)
He was shot accidentally in the foot while cleaning his rifle in August of 1861, but the wound was not serious and he eventually returned to duty. He was an ambulance driver and Corporal in July of 1862, and discharged on December 26, 1862, at Camp Pitcher, Virginia, for a varicocele of four months’ standing.
After his discharge from the army Albert returned to Grand Rapids, and from 1867 to 1868 was working as a laborer and boarding at his father’s home on the southwest corner of Lincoln and Third Streets.
He was working as a painter and living in Hopkins, Allegan County, when he married Michigan native Mary W. Brewer (1857-1931) on December 31, 1875, in Hopkins, and they had one child: Edna (1876-1938, Mrs. Bertsch).
Albert was possibly working as a farmer when he died in Hopkins on April 21, 1876, and was originally buried in Allegan County. His parents had the body disinterred several days later and brought back to Grand Rapids where it was interred in Fulton cemetery: block 3 lot 21 grave 3.
Although Albert apparently never joined the Old 3rd Michigan Infantry Association, his widow eventually became an honorary member. Mary remarried one Roderick Phillips, in 1878. By 1880 Mary and her husband were living in Hopkins, Allegan County; also living with them was Edna Pelton. In December of 1890 Mary Phillips was living in Michigan when she applied for and received a pension (no. 887,963). She and Roderick divorced in 1902. By 1917 she was living in Rolette, North Dakota.
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