Genealogical and Family History
of the
STATE OF MAINE

Compiled under the editorial supervision of George Thomas Little, A. M., Litt. D.

LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
New York
1909.

[Please see Index page for full citation.]

[Transcribed by Coralynn Brown]

[Many families included in these genealogical records had their beginnings in Massachusetts.]

CARTER In the early settlements of New England various immigrants named Carter appeared among the pioneers. From them has sprung the greater part of the great number of the name now residing in this country. The revolutionary rolls show that many Carters were soldiers in the struggle for independence. (I) Thomas Carter may have been first a settler of Ipswich, later he was an original settler of Sudbury, Mass., and was made a freeman May 2, 1638. He was a "planter" of Salisbury, and received lang in the "first division," and in 1640. He was townsman and commoner in 1650, and was taxed then and later. His will, made Oct. 30, was probated Nov. 14, 1767. [trans note: Must be a typo, 1767. Perhaps 1676??] His wife's name was Mary. Children: Mary, Thomas, Martha (died young), Martha, Elizabeth, John, Abigial, Samuel and Sarah. (II) John, sixth child and second son of Thomas and Mary Carter, was born May 18, 1650, in Salisbury, and took the oath of allegiance and fidelity at Salisbury in Dec., 1677. He was a solider sent to Marlborough about 1689, and was living in 1718. His wife, Martha, died in Salisbury March 10, 1718. Children: Mary, Thomas, Abigail, John, Samuel, Mary and Ephraim. (III) Ephraim, seventh and youngest child of John and Martha Carter, was born Nov. 2, 1693, and resided in Salisbury as late as 1718, and probably for years afterward. He was the first Carter to settle in Concord, New Hampshire, whither he went about 1740. Tradition states that he went to Concord on horseback, taking his youngest child, Abigail, behind him on a pillion, she being then eleven years old. When they left South Hampton, where they then resided, the neighbors expressed great sympathy for them; gathered around and wept when they bade them farewell to go so far into the wilderness. Reaching Sugar Ball Hill, near Concord (N.H.), they chained the wheels of the cart containing their goods, to get them down the hill safely; transported their goods over the Merrimac in a canoe, swimming the oxen; then fastening bedcords to the tongue of the cart, dragged it across the river. In 1746 Ephraim, Ezra and Joseph Carter were in the garrison round the house of Lieut. Jeremiah Stickney, in Concord. In 1761 thirty-nine citizens of Concord, among whom were Jeremiah Stickney, Timothy Walker, Nathaniel Eastman and "Epram Carter," mast contractors, petitioned the governor, Benning Wentworth, and his council to removed the obstructions from the Merrimac river, so that they might more advantageously transport their masts down the river. Ephraim Carter married Martha Stevens, supposed to have been the daughter of John and Ruth (Poor) Stevens, of Andover, Mass. John STEVENS was born in Andover, in 1663, son of Lieut. John and Hannah (Barnard) Stevens, and grandson of John Stevens, the immigrant, who moved from Newbury to Andover, Mass. about 1645. Ephraim & Martha's children: Ezra, Daniel, Ezekiel, Joseph and Abigail, and perhaps others. (IV) Daniel, second son of Ephraim and Martha (Stevens) Carter, was born in Salisbury, and settled in Concord, N. H. about 1750, near what was later called the Ironworks. He had lived some time in South Hampton, N. H., and at the time of his going to Concord he had three children. He married Hannah Fowler, of Salisbury, Mass. Children: Ezra, Molly, Daniel, Hannah, John, Moses and Anna. (V) Jacob, son of Daniel and Hannah (Fowler) Carter [trans note: I don't see his name on the list of his children], was a revolutionary soldier. He served as a drummer in Capt. Joshua Abbott's company in Colonel John Stark's regiemtn, the date of his enlistment being April 24, 1775, and Aug. 1, 1775, receipted for pay for three months and fifteen days, a coat and a blanket and mileage for seventy miles travel. Oct. 4 of the same year, at Medford, he was one of those who receipted for four dollars "in full satisfaction for the regimental coat which was promised to us by the Colony of New Hampshire." His name is on "A Roll of Captain Ben'jn Emery's Comp'ny in Colo Baldwin's Regiment which was raised to reinforce the Continental army at New York Sept. 20, 1776, as Musyer'd & paid by Colo Thomas Stickney muster master & paymaster of said Company." He is described as "drummer" on the "Pay Roll of Captain Joshua Abbot's Company in L't Col Henry Gerrish's Regiemtn New Hampshire Volunteers which Company marched from Concord and towns Adjacent Sept'r 1777 and join'd the Northern Continental Army at Saratoga." History states that he was at Bunker Hill and Saratoga. He was discharged after the surrender of Burgoyne. He was a miller and farmer. He erected the first brick building in Concord in 1804, the same house that was the foundation of St. Paul's school, but never occupied it. His death occurred in 1805. He married Sarah Eastman. Children: Susanna (died young), Susanna, Moses, Sally, Ruth, Abiel, Anna, Jacob and Ebenezer. Sarah Eastman, born in Concord, N. H., Aug. 8, 1757, was the daughter of Moses and Elizabeth (Kimball) Eastman. After the death of her husband Mrs. Carter lived on the homestead two years and then married (second) Captain Colby. (VI) Jacob (2), second son of Jacob (1) and Sarah (Eastman) Carter, was born at Millville near the present St. Paul's school, Concord, N.H., June 4, 1796, died in Concord March 13, 1881, aged eighty-five. The following account of Mr. Carter is taken from the Independent Statesman, published at Concord March 17, 1881: "In 1906 Jacob went to Norwich, Vermont, to live with is eldest sister, Mrs. Susannah Duncklee, and attended school at Hanover, one year. In 1808 or 1809, he went to Sanbornton, where his mother lived, and remained there until April, 1811, when he went to Lebanon, to learn the joiner's trade of Captain Young, but as he was chiefly employed in chores, he did not remain long, but soon went to live with another sister, Mrs. Sally Roby, in Hanover, where he attended school six months, doing chores for his board. Here he commenced to learn the trade of watchmaker of a Mr. Copp, remaining about a year when he returned to Concord and learned the trade of silversmith, goldsmith, and clockmaker, with the late Major Timothy Chandler, whose shop was on Main street. He remained with Major Chandler until the fall of 1814, when he went to Portsmouth as a volunteer in the Concord Artillery for the defence of that port, and served about a month, for which he received a pension a few of his last years." Potter's History of New Hampshire, page 219, shows that Jacob Carter enlisted Sept. 10, 1814, and was discharged Sept. 29, 1814, serving in Capt. Peter Robinson's company of Major Nathaniel Sias's battalion of detached militia. Soon after returning from Portsmouth he went to Hanover to learn watchmaking of a Mr. Mitchell, for whom he wokred three months for $5 a month and board, and one year for $8 a month and board. He then went to Plattsburg, New York, and worked a while at his trade with his brother-in-law, John Robie, and finally took his business and carried it on for a year, part of the time in company with the late Ivory Hall, for whom he sent in the fall of 1816. The latter being taken sick and insane for a time, Mr. Carter closed out his business in the fall of 1817, and with twenty dollars in his pocket started on foot for Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, a distance of about four hundred miles, where his brother, Rev. Abiel Carter, was the living. He took a schooner at Ogdensburg for Sackett's Harbor, and walked from there to Utica, New York, where he tried for work, but could obtain none, and then walked on to Buffalo, where they were just breaking ground for the Erie canal. There he waited for a steamer several days, and thence to Meadville, Pennsylvania, when, as his friends were getting low, he and another man who was a carpenter and out of funds, built a boat of a few boards, caulking it with flax, and started down French creek to the Alleghany river, and reached Pittsburg on the third. He worked for a watchmaker in that place, by the name of Perkins, a year for twenty-five dollars a month and board, and was in company with him for another year, when the firm was broken up through some flurry in the U. S. Bank. He then went to Cincinnati and Louisville, where he found a captain of a barge bound for St. Louis, with whom he took passage, and from the latter place he started up the Mississippi river, April 20, for the Falls of St. Anthony, with government supplies for the Indians, and their boat stopped near what is now the site of Fort Snelling. For this trip he was to receive two dollars a day, but his employer proved dishonest, and he received nothing, and they were five months making the trip, up and back, to St. Louis. On his return to the latter city he was taken sick with fever and ague, and he remained there until November, when he went down the Mississippi river to Natchez, where he obtained work at his trade with a Connecticut man named Downs, with whom he remained until the next June, receiving sixty-five dollars for his services. He then went to New Orleans, and sailed in a schooner for Boston, the passage occupying forty-three days. In 1821 he commenced business at Hanover, and continued there until 1828, and during his residence there commanded the cavalry in the Twentieth Regiment State Militia. In the fall of 1828 he removed to Amesbury, Mass., where his brother, the late Dr. Moses Carter, then resided, and was appointed postmaster of that town in the fall of 1829, by President Jackson, and held that office four years. In the fall of 1833 he removed to East Concord and engaged in mill and lumber business for a year, with a brother, but the business not proving profitable, in 1834 he came to tis part of Concord, then known as the "Street," and worked at his trade some for one year, when he bought a stock of goods and watch materials and went to northern Alabama and spent the winter, returning to Concord the next June. In October, 1836, he went to Mississippi with another stock of goods, and also in 1837, and had one thousand dollars of Mississippi money when the banks of that state went down. He bought some horses with another man named Sherman, and started for Wasington with an emigrant wagon, July 1, 1837. The weather was very warm, and they started usually at daylight and drove three hours, and about the same time at night, and reached Fredericksburg, Virginia, with their horses in improved condition, sold the team, and took a steamer to Washington, and from there home, which ended his trading expeditions. He established the watch and jewelry business in Concord in the fall of 1837, in the Old Eagle Coffee House, and remained in business until 1853, when he sold out to his son Abiel and George W. Drew. He resumed business again a few years later, and continued it until 1874, when he retired. Mr. Carter was appointed postmaster of Concord President Pierce in 1853, and was reappointed by President Buchanan in 1857, and held the office until 1860, discharging the duties in an eminently satisfactory manner to the public. He served as representative in the legislature in the year 1645-46, and was a trustee of St. Paul's school ever since it was founded. He took his first degrees in Masonry in Pittsburg during his residence there, more than sixty years ago; Chapter degrees in 1822, and commandery in 1824, both of the latter in Hanover, and he was an active and honorary member of Mt. Horeb Commandery of this city, and honorary member of Trinity Commandery, at Manchester. He was probably the oldest Sir Knight in the state at the time of his death." He died at the residence of his son-in-law, William W. Taylor, in Concord, N. H., Sunday, March 13, 1881, after a short illness of neuralgia of the heart. "The death of 'Uncle Jacob' Carter removes from our city one of its oldest native born citizens, who has had an eventlful life, as this sketch given substantially as told to us four years ago, will show, and an estimable man who enjoyed the love and respect of his fellow citizens to an eminent degree, and whose life was a benediction to his family and friends. The evening of his life has been made exceedingly pleasant by his children, and he fully appreciated all that was done for him. A good man in all the relations of life has departed from our midst." His funeral, conducted by the Masons, was very largely attended, and the procession which followed his body to the grave was a very imposing one. Jacob Carter married, in Hanover, in 1824, Caroline Ramsdell, born July 7, 1799, daughter of Samuel and Mary Ann (Belden) Stocking, of Middle Haddam, Connecticut. She died in Concord, Feb. 23, 1874, aged seventy-five. She was a fitting companion for her husband, cheerful, intelligent and resourceful, and brought up her children in the way they should go. Children: Caroline Elizabeth, Abiel, Clara Anna and John William Dodge. 1. Caroline Elizabeth, born May 3, 1826, married, Sept. 7, 1847, William Wallace Taylor, of Concord; children: Henry Shattuck, b. June 5, 1849, d. July 3, 1856; Harry Carter, b. April 2, 1865, m. April 2, 1888, Sarah Gertrude Glysson, child, William Walbridge, b. Jan. 30, 1892.. 2. Abiel, born Nov. 6, 1827, married Martha Vesta Emery, Oct. 24, 1850, and resided in Portland, Maine, where he died July 3, 1898. 3. Clara Anna, born Dec. 9, 1837, married George Edward Tinker, of New Berne, North Carolina, Dec. 4, 1873, and died Feb. 23, 1907. 4. John William Dodge, see below. (VII) John William Dodge, youngest child of Jacob (2) and Caroline R. (Stocking) Carter, was born in Concord, N. H., April 30, 1840. He was educated in Concord, and afterward learned the jeweler's trade while in the employ of the American Watch Company, Waltham, Mass. In Aug., 1864, he removed to Portland, Maine, where he has since resided. Since 1898 he has been president and treasurer of Carter Brothers Company, watchmakers and jewelers, one of the leading institutions of its kind in the state. He married Oct. 3, 1870, Agnes Hudson, of Airdrie, Scotland, born Jan. 16, 1842, daughter of Thomas and Jane (Anderson) Hudson, of Rawyards, Scotland. Thomse Hudson was the son of Alexander Hudson, a native of Fife, Scotland; Jane Anderson was daughter of John Anderson, who was born in Airdrie, Scotland.