Martha Fullingim was the seventh child born to Rev. Henry and Martha (Wade) Fullingim. Her place of birth was in Georgia, and she too accompanied her family when they migrated to East Texas in 1849. When she was enumerated in the 1850 Census for Lamar County, Texas, Martha was 23 years old. Four months after her father died Martha married Henry Hawkins Wilton on August 19, 1856, in Lamar County. Her husband, also known as H. H. Wilton, was originally from the Dominion of Canada according to Cates (304), but another source records that he was "a native of Tennessee" and that he "came to Texas when a boy, casting in his lot with the pioneer setters who arrived in this state in the early forties" (Paddock 229). Further research will no doubt solve this question of Henry Wilton's birthplace. Based on his war record, Henry was born in either 1828 or 1829.

Henry H. Wilton became a millwright by trade and followed that pursuit for some years. Following their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Wilton settled in Lamar County, where he owned and operated a mill (Paddock 229). They had three children, two of whom were born while they were residing in Lamar County, Henry Fullingim Wilton in August 1857 and George C. Wilton in March 1859.

Later, however, Henry sold his property in Lamar County and went north across the Red River into Choctaw Nation, where he built two mills (Paddock 229). In 1860 he returned to Wise County, Texas, where he pre-empted land five miles north of Decatur and improved a farm, building a house there for his family and following the carpenter's trade in connection with general agricultural pursuits.

in the 1870 Census of Wise County, Martha (Fullingim) Wilton—listed by the name 'Mary'—was enumerated as a widow at age forty-three, and her three children were enumerated as well, Henry (age 13), George (age 11) and Jessie Ann (age 8). Martha's only daughter, Mary Jessie (Wilton) Wade, often told a story about her mother to her own grandchildren—a story from this Civil War time period which is now being preserved in written form. Mary Lou (Tucker) Jones, one of those grandchildren of Mrs. Mary J. Wade, vividly related this oral account:

Mammy Wade told us this story over and over about the Indians. It was grandmother Wilton and with those babies—the father was off to the [Civil] War, ya' know—she would hear the horses moving around out there, and she knew the Indians were there. So she put her hand over our grandmother's mouth to keep her from crying. The Indians would take the horses, but they'd manage to stay alive.

Mrs. Martha (née Fullingim) Wilton accepted her lot in life and raised her children in the strength of her own character. She never remarried. Even though the children were raised without their father, it is insightful to note that in the 1870 Census of Wise County, Texas, the Wilton family was sandwiched between the families of two of their Fullingim uncles, on one side lived (Rev.) Edward Coke and Sallie Fullingim with their two young daughters, Martha and Elizabeth, and on the other side there was Jesse P. and Ann Fullingim who had been only recently married. Undoubtedly, Martha drew upon the support of her brothers during these difficult pioneering days and post Civil War years in Wise County. According to her grandnephew, Cliff D. Cates, she was familiarly known to others as "Aunt Martha."

That Martha was in the livestock business as well can be established by the following quote concerning her son, Henry: "he was reared. . .to the cattle business, and he remained under the parental roof with his mother until twenty-five years of age, being largely engaged in herding cattle on the free range. His mother owned the stock, and after she sold out he was employed by others" (Paddock 230).

Mrs. Martha Wilton died in Decatur on Saturday the 26th of August 1905 at the age of seventy-seven, just three months after one of her older brothers had also died in Decatur, John Fletcher Fullingim Sr. She "was one of the splendid, grand old women of her time," and when she died, she "was mourned by a large concourse of friends and relatives" (Cates, Cliff D.: Pioneer History of Wise County: From Red Men to Railroads--Twenty Years of Intrepid History, Wise County Old Settlers' Association, Decatur, TX, 1907, p. 305).