leaving Congress Chilton remained in Kentucky for the next four years. In 1839 he removed his family to Talladega, Alabama. This was the location of his younger brother William Parish Chilton who had just been elected to the State legislature. Chilton continued some law practice but also accepted the pulpit of the Hope Baptist Church in Talladega. During a revival meeting, Chilton led to conversion his maternal cousin Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor. Baylor subsequently was ordained a minister of the Baptist faith, relocated to Texas, and in 1845 co-founded Baylor University in Independence, Texas. (Baylor was relocated to Waco, Texas in 1885.) In 1841 Chilton served as president of the Alabama Baptist State Convention. After his first wife died in September 1842, he married a woman from his Talladega congregation and accepted a call to pastor the First Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama. Later, he pastored churches in Greensboro and Newbern. In August 1851 Chilton was invited to pastor the First Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. He removed from Alabama with his wife, Louisa nee Conklin, and their six young children. He began his ministry there December 6, 1851 but resigned October 28, 1853 to pastor a church in Montgomery, Texas. While delivering a sermon on August 15, 1854 he suddenly clutched his chest, collapsed, and died of a heart attack before the congregation. The town of Chilton, Texas was named for his son, Lysias B. Chilton. A grandson, Horace Chilton became a U.S. Senator from Texas, and was actually the first native born Texan to serve in Congress. Genealogical annoyance Thomas Chilton was not the first-born son of Baptist clergyman Thomas John Chilton and does not bear his middle name as a Junior. On August 8, 1815 he received written permission from his father to marry "Frances T. Stoner". The "T" stood for her middle name, Tribble, but Chilton is identified only as Thomas, with no middle initial recorded by his own father. It has been reported, incorrectly, that Thomas Chilton's gravestone in Montgomery County, Texas bears the middle initial "B". References Johnson, Frank M., "Montgomery County, Texas, CSA" September, 2013: 34-39. Hannum, Sharon Elain, "Thomas Chilton: Lawyer, Politician, Preacher." Filson Club History Quarterly 38, April 1964: 97-114. Shackford, James Atkins, "The Author of David Crockett's Autobiography." The Boston Public Library Quarterly, October 1951: 294-304 External links Guide to Thomas H. Chilton correspondence, housed at the University of Kentucky