California Biographies

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


JAMES T. CARTER, a successful dairyman of Tulare county, in the vicinity of Visalia. was 
born in Davis county, Iowa, near Bloomfield. December 11, 1852. His grandfather, Joseph 
Carter, a native of Kentucky and a patriot in the Black Hawk war, became an early settler of 
Iowa, where he engaged in farming. Later in life he removed to Barry county, Mo., where 
his death occurred. His son, William Carter, was a native of Kentucky. He also became a 
farmer in Iowa, in which state he remained until after the Civil war broke out. During the 
war he removed to Woodson county, Kans., then to Missouri, and later to Wilson county, 
Kans., where he became a pioneer farmer. In 1882 he came to California and located near 
Three Rivers, Tulare county, where he still resides. His wife, formerly Mary F. Hill, of Kentucky, 
was a daughter of Robert Hill, of the same state, who removed to Iowa, where his death 
occurred. Mrs. Carter is still living, the mother of seven sons and two daughters, having lost 
two children by death. 

The fourth child in the family of his parents, James T. Carter was reared on the home farm. 
Until he was twenty-five years old he remained at home, when he engaged in farming 
independently near Fredonia, Kans. In 1883 he came to California and in Tulare county entered 
the employ of James Pouge, with whom he remained eight years. Since that time he has 
been engaged in general farming, stock-raising and the dairy business. He is located on an 
eighty-acre tract two and a half miles northwest of Visalia, where he has a dairy of thirty cows. 
He is a very successful farmer and is one of the representative men of this section. In Visalia, 
January 25, 1893, he married Mrs. Ovitt (Taylor) Stong, a native of Birkenhead, Chester, 
England. Her father, W. G. Taylor, also a native of England, conducted a mercantile estab- 
lishment, selling gloves and hosiers' in Liverpool. In 1850 he brought his wife and three children 
to California on the barque Ocean Queen, via Cape Horn. The ship was wrecked off Cape Horn 
and the greater part of the year was spent on the sea. Upon their safe arrival in the state, 
Mr. Taylor went at once to the mines in Mariposa county, and later to Stanislaus county, fol- 
lowing mining at Knights Ferry, until 1874. In that year he returned to England, and settled in 
South Devon, where his death occurred. His wife, formerly Ovitt E. Hannon, was born at 
Birmingham, England, and died at Knights Ferry, Stanislaus county. Of the five children bom 
of their union, Mrs. Carter, the third in order of birth, is the only one now living. She was 
reared to young womanhood in the state of her father's adoption, receiving her education in 
the public schools. In 1872, in San Francisco, she married M. S. W. Stong. a native of Illinois. 
He was a son of Solomon Stong, a farmer of Illinois of German descent. He came to California 
in 1849, crossing the plains with ox-teams from Missouri, and upon his arrival in San Juan 
engaged in the mercantile business. After his marriage he removed to Battle Mountain, Nev., 
and in 1873 located in Visalia, Tulare county, in the latter place following building and fanning. 
In 1880 he located on a farm adjoining the one now owned by Mrs. Carter, this being pur- 
chased in 1887, in which year Mr. Stong died. He was a Mason of Royal Arch degree, and 
politically cast his ballot with the Democratic party. Taking a strong interest in all local affairs 
he served as school trustee. Of the five children born of her first marriage four are living, 
namely : Clara M., the wife of W. E. Malone, of Los Angeles ; Ovitt E., the wife of A. R. Shippy, 
of Visalia ; David B. Stong, located near Visalia ; and Guy W. Stong, at home. In his political 
affiliations Mr. Carter is a Democrat, and fraternally is associated with the Woodmen of the 
World.