Short Biography of Melzar Colton & Jerusha Sutherland

Melzar Colton was born in New York, Dec. 7, 1830. He is a son of Melzar and Jerusha (Sutherland) Colton. His father was born in New York, where he died, June 10, 1835. In the summer of 1836 his mother removed with her family, her brother, Justus Sutherland, and family; her sister, Rachel Sylvester, and family; and her sister's son, Amor R. Sylvester, and family, to Coles Co., Ill., remaining there until the spring of 1839, when she came to Green county in company with her brother, Justus Sutherland, and settled soon after on the east half of the northeast quarter of section 9, where Mrs. Colton died Feb. 5, 1863, in the seventy-first year of her age. Mr. and Mrs. Colton had three children — John, deceased; Mary, deceased, and Melzar, the subject of this sketch. Mrs. Colton was converted when quite young, and united with the Baptist Church, with which she was connected for about thirty years. She then withdrew from that Church and joined the Methodist Church, of which she was a consistent member at the time of her death.

Source: "History of Green County, Wisconsin" ⁴⁸¹³