While waiting for ordination, he settled in life and married, April 20, 1781, Lucy, daughter of Philip Nichols, Esq., of Stratfield (now Bridgeport), [Footnote: The marriage was undoubtedly solemnized by the Rev. Christopher Newton of Ripton, the only Church clergyman in the vicinity, and still Mr. Shelton's rector. He baptized the first child, _Lucy_, born June 27, 1782.] strong churchman and first lay-delegate chosen to represent the Diocese of Connecticut in the General Convention. In February, 1785, a formal arrangement was made that his services in each of the three places should be proportioned to the number of churchmen residing in them respectively, and until he should be in Orders it was stipulated to pay him twenty shillings lawful money for each day that he officiated. Ashbel Baldwin, his nearest neighbor in parochial work, and most intimate friend and associate in efforts to build up the Church in Connecticut, used to say that the hands of Bishop Seabury were first laid upon the head of Mr. Shelton on the 3d of August, 1785, so that his name really begins the long list of clergy who have had ordination in this country by bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In the Diocesan Convention, under an established rule of that body, he invariably outranked Mr. Baldwin, and so was frequently the presiding officer in the absence of the Bishop, which is another proof that he was his senior by ordination as well as in years. At the first convocation of the clergy after the death of Bishop Jarvis, held in Stratford, June 1, 1813, Mr. Baldwin, as Secretary, entered the names of twenty-nine who were present, and then recorded: "The Rev. Doctor Mansfield desired to be excused from serving as President on account of his age and infirmities; which excuse was accepted by the brethren. The Rev. Philo Shelton, being the next oldest presbyter, took the chair." Should it be said that this does not refer to the diaconate, it may be answered that the obituary notice of his widow, who died in 1838, speaks of him as "the _first_ clergyman ordained by the first American Bishop." 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.