After his admission to Holy Orders, according to his own statement, Mr. Shelton took full "pastoral charge of the cure of Fairfield, including Stratfield and Weston, dividing his time equally between the three churches, with a salary of one hundred pounds per annum from the congregations and the use of what lands belonged to the cure." It was a small living for a clergyman who already had a wife and two children, but the Revolutionary War had so reduced the people and their resources, that it could not well be made larger. Five years passed away before the enterprise of building a new church in Fairfield was really begun, and then it was erected about a mile west of the site where the old one stood, and was only inclosed and made fit for occupancy at the time, and not finished and consecrated till 1798.
The population was drifting from Stratfield toward the borough of Bridgeport, and in 1801 it was deemed advisable to demolish the old church and build a new one in a more central situation. Mr. Shelton saw the wisdom of this movement and encouraged it, though it was attended very naturally with some painful considerations, and took away a pleasing picture from the landscape which filled the vision of Dr. Dwight when he wrote his poem entitled "Greenfield Hill":
"Here, sky-encircled, Stratford's churches beam, And Stratfield's turrets greet the roving eye."
The new church in the borough was so far completed as to be used for public worship in the beginning of Advent, 1801, and two years later "the ground floor was sold at public vendue for the purpose of building the pews and seats thereon, and finishing the church; and the money raised in the sale amounted to between six and seven hundred dollars." The cost of the building—about thirty-five hundred dollars—was over and above this, and was met by the voluntary contributions of the people. Mr. Shelton, in speaking of the completion of the whole work, said: "It has been conducted in harmony, with good prudence, strict economy, and a degree of elegance and taste which does honor to the committee, and adds respectability to the place."
For nearly forty years the scene of his ministerial labors was undisturbed, and he dwelt among his people in quietness and confidence, and had the satisfaction of seeing them attain to a high degree of worldly prosperity, and St. John's Church in Bridgeport, especially, to be one of the strongest and most flourishing in the diocese. The silent influence of a good life carried him along smoothly, and left its gentle impress wherever he was known. "A faithful pastor, a guileless and godly man," is a part of the inscription upon the marble monument erected over his ashes in the Mountain Grove Cemetery at Bridgeport, a few years since, by his son William, and these words sum up very appropriately his ministerial and Christian character.
While he confined himself closely to the duties of his cure, he shrank not from work put upon him by the diocese, and was for twenty-four years a member of the standing committee, and a firm supporter of ecclesiastical authority in seasons of trial and trouble. He was also several times chosen a deputy to the General Convention, and never failed to attend its sessions.
There were things that gave him great pain towards the end of his days, and "put his confidence in the providence of God to a severe test." He and Mr. Baldwin, so long earnest and friendly workers in adjoining fields of labor, appear to have reached the same determination at the same time, and probably they conferred together before resigning their respective rectorships, which they both did in 1824. Bishop Brownell, referring to this action in his address to the annual convention of that year said: "These clergymen were admitted to their ministry at the first Episcopal ordination ever held in America, and have served their respective parishes for more than thirty years. They have labored faithfully in the Church in this diocese during its darkest periods of depression, and through the progressive stages of its advancement they have taken an important part in its councils. They have 'borne the burden and heat of the day,' and are entitled to the gratitude of all those who enjoy the fruits of their counsels and labors."
Mr. Shelton confined his services after this wholly to the Church in Fairfield, but he did not long survive the change. He died on the 27th of February, 1825, and was buried under the chancel of the old church in Mill Plain, Fairfield, where he had ministered so many years, including his time as lay-reader, and a marble tablet was provided by the congregation to mark his resting-place, on which among other things were inscribed the date of his birth, graduation, admission to Holy Orders, and the words: "being the first clergyman episcopally ordained in the United States."
In 1842 the parishioners of Trinity Church, Fairfield, voted to remove all the public services to the chapel, which had been built seven years before in the borough of Southport, about a mile and a half distant from Mill Plain, and to transfer the site, title, and rights of the parish to that edifice. The old church was afterwards taken down and parts of it used to build the rectory in Southport. The memorial tablet was also transferred, but on the afternoon of March 11, 1854, the Southport Church was accidentally burnt, and the tablet destroyed. The remains of Mr. Shelton now have a final resting-place with his sainted wife and two of his daughters in the cemetery before mentioned. A monumental tablet in the wall of St. John's Church, Bridgeport, "bears an affectionate testimony to his Christian worth and ministerial fidelity." Bishop Brownell, in his address to the Annual Convention of the Diocese, said of him very truly: "He has faithfully and successfully labored for almost forty years in the parish from which his Divine Master has now called him to his rest. He has taken an important part in the ecclesiastical concerns of the diocese, from the period of its first organization, and the moderation and prudence of his counsels have contributed, in no small degree, to the welfare of the Church. For simplicity of character, amiable manners, unaffected piety, and a faithful devotion to the duties of the ministerial office, he has left an example by which all his surviving brethren may profit, and which few of them can hope to surpass."
His widow survived him thirteen years—an intelligent and devout churchwoman who, as it has been said, "left a name only to be loved and honored by her friends." Two of his sons entered the ministry. The younger of them, George Augustus Shelton, a graduate of Yale College, died in 1863, Rector of St. James's Church, Newtown, L. I. The other, the late William Shelton, D. D., succeeded his father for a time in Fairfield, and then went to Buffalo, where for more than half a century he was the distinguished Rector of St. Paul's Church, the oldest parish in that city. Both died childless, and the name of Shelton has disappeared from the list of our clergy.