Background
A son of Elisha P. Bolton and the former Eliza Burbridge, Bolton was born in DeKalb County, Georgia, in what became part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Bolton was educated in his father"s private school.
A son of Elisha P. Bolton and the former Eliza Burbridge, Bolton was born in DeKalb County, Georgia, in what became part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Bolton was educated in his father"s private school.
When he was sixteen, the family relocated to the Shiloh community in Union Parish, north of Ruston, Louisiana. He served throughout the American Civil War. After the war Bolton taught school for a year in Union Parish but soon pursued the mercantile business, first in Winnfield.
The couple had ten children, at least three of whom died in early childhood: James Wade, George G., Frank P., James Porter, Roscoe Conkling, Bertha Bolton Hall (1889-1944), Ida Ruth Bolton Roach (1876-1906), Lotta T. (1874-1876), Albert (1881-1882), and George West., Junior.
(1885-1889)
In 1869, Bolton moved the business to Pineville on the eastern side of the Red River across from the larger Alexandria, the seat of government of Rapides Parish. The business in Pineville closed in 1900.
In 1888, he was elected as a Democrat to the first of two terms in the Louisiana House of Representatives. The governor at the time was Democrat Francis T. Nicholls.
In Bolton"s second term under Governor Murphy J. Foster, Senior, he was elected the House Speaker.
In 1888, Bolton organized the Rapides Bank and Trust Company, since merged into Bank One Corporation. He stepped down as the bank president in 1912 but remained chairman of the board until his death nineteen years later. In 1900, he was elected the first president of the newly organized Louisiana Bankers Association.
He was the president of the company that built the former bridge over the Red River at Murray Street in Alexandria.
Bolton was the first president of the executive board of the Alexandria-based Louisiana Baptist Convention and an organizer of the large Emmanuel Baptist Church in downtown Alexandria. His family in subsequent generations continued to support Emmanuel Church.
He was an officer of the Masonic lodge. Bolton Avenue, a major thoroughfare west of downtown Alexandria, is named in his honor.
She had died only twenty-three days prior to his passing.
Active in political and civic affairs, Bolton was a delegate to state constitutional conventions in 1879 and 1898. He was a delegate the 1904 Democratic National Convention, which nominated Judge Alton B. Parker of New York to carry the party"s unsuccessful banner against the Republican United States. President Theodore Roosevelt.
He was a member of the executive council of the American Bankers Association. He was a member of the elected Rapides Parish School Board.