Carter Family       

 

 

Record of the Carter family beginning with Thomas Brunston (T.B. or Tom) and Elizabeth King Carter.

 

T.B. Carter was born 10 February 1846 in Iowa. His parents had moved there from Kentucky.

Elizabeth King’s parents came from Strasbourg, Germany.  She was born 11 Jun 1849 in Rochester, NY.  Her mother died when Elizabeth was seven years old.  The family moved to Iowa and later to Fort Dodge, Kansas where Tom and Elizabeth met and were married.  Their first son, James Oliver, was born near Fort Dodge, 15 December 1867.  Two more sons, Grant (January 1871) and Charles or Charley (July 1872) as he was called were born in Dickerson County Kansas before the family decided to move west.

T.B. and his brother (probably Edward L.) had a team of oxen and helped construct the railroad as it was being built westward.  It is not known whether T.B. continued this work or proceeded with other caravans to Arizona.  Members of the family recalled, in their later years, experiences that occurred as they traveled westward in covered wagons.  They passed through Indian Territory in parts of Texas and New Mexico and saw herds of buffalo.  One herd completely wrecked their camp as it stampeded through it.  Elizabeth was washing in the shade of the canvas drawn across the top opening made by two covered wagons placed side by side.  Charley, the baby, was sitting on a blanket on the ground.  She heard a roaring sound and looked around to see a herd of buffalo coming toward them.  She had only time to grab the baby and climb into a wagon before one of the buffalo came through the opening, scattering tubs and camp equipment in all directions.

While crossing the plains, buffalo chips were used for fuel to cook with when wood was not available.

The family entered the Arizona Territory probably somewhere close to where Gallup, New Mexico is today and continued on to Winslow where they turned southwest.  They passed Stoneman Lake and went on down to Camp Verde (Fort Lincoln).  They arrived in Fort Whipple in the winter of 1873 just before Christmas.  The family was almost without funds or food.  The nurses and others at the Fort collected some essentials for them.  James told of how Grant, Charley and he stood looking through the window of a store at some stick candy and thought it looked like the nicest thing in the world.

From Fort Whipple the family moved to Walnut Creek and rented Roger’s ranch for a time.  Here Birdie May was born in January 1876.         

They took a place in the upper end of Walnut Creek and later traded it for thirty head of cows.

T. B. then ranched another place in Camp Wood.  They lived there for two years, then moved to Clipper Hill at the head of the Hassayampa River.  T. B. worked in the saw mill and Elizabeth ran the boarding house.  

A year later the moved to Prescott.  The children attended school there for two years before they family moved to Crown King in 1879.  T. B. again worked in the saw mills and Elizabeth boarded the men.  It was here that Jim and Grant worked at their first paying jobs, cutting logs.  They were about 13 and 12 years old.

In 1882 they moved to Walnut Grove on the Collumb place.  Della was born there in June of that year.

Later in 1883 they moved to Peeples Valley and rented Genung’s ranch.  Then it was back to the ‘Grove”, living for a time on the old Lamberson place on Milk Creek.  When the dam was being built across the Hassayampa River near Wagoner in 1885 they were living on the old Jackson place.  From there they moved across the river.  That was to be their home for many years.  Their third daughter, Annetta, was born there in July 1888.  The family seemed anchored at last.

When James Carter wrote most of this for a record of his sister, Annetta, he put in parenthesis (seems like a lot of moving doesn’t it?)

Grant Carter married Georgia Rudy, Charley married Kate Rudy, Birdie May married Joseph Carter, Della married Henry Pierce (Clara Ann’s brother) and Annetta married Orville M. Glenn.  James Carter and Clara Ann Pierce were married April 5, 1892 and later bought the Pierce Ranch from his wife’s parents, William and Mary Caroline Pierce.  This ranch in Walnut Grove is still known today as the Necktie Ranch.  Their four children, Glenna Carter Clark, Cortlandt Arden Carter, Georgia Carter Hampton and Clay Dean Carter Potter were all born there.

Cort’s son, Cortlandt Arden Carter Jr. and his wife Ruth and their son Cortland Arden Carter III (Trip) and Trip’s son, Clay still live on and work the ranch that was originally purchased by William “Uncle Billy” Pierce in the 1880’s.  The ranch has now been in the family for five generations.

“Uncle Billy” Pierce donated the land were the Walnut Grove Cemetery is located and many of the member of the Pierce and Carter families are buried there.

 

 

 

Return to Yavapai Co. Homesteads Page

 

Maintained by D. Sue Crowder Kissel

Assistant Pat Potter

This page was last updated Monday, October 30, 2006