As early as 1845 Mr. Carleton came to northern Michigan to fulfill a Government contract in laying off township lines and subdivisions at $10 and $6 each respectively. This work occupied two years, and on its completion he returned to St. Clair, his former home, and from there went to Iowa on a Government surveying contract, and laid off and made a map of the State of Iowa. In 1853 he returned to the Sault, and, going to the southern part of the county, near where Raber now is, founded the village of Carleton, now extinct, and built and operated a large sawmill there. This venture proved unsuccessful, and he returned to Sault Ste. Marie and engaged in keeping a subscription school, winter and summer, from 1856 to 1860. One of his pupils in this school was George Kemp, who is now one of the prominent businessmen of the "Soo," and brother-in-law of Mr. Carleton. Another pupil, Arthur L. Williams, is an Episcopal clergyman, now rector of Christ Church, Chicago, Illinois.
In 1862 Mr. Carleton enlisted in the regiment of "Lancers" at Detroit, and was Captain of a company, and Colonel Rankin commanded the regiment. The regiment, not being called to the front, was mustered out, and Mr. Carleton returned to the "Soo," where he was appointed toll receiver under George W. Brown, on the old State ship canal, succeeding to the superintendency in 1864, which position he resigned at the end of the nine years, at his own solicitation. At one time he was County Clerk and Register of Deeds, and was also a member of the early boards of Supervisors at different periods. After resigning his position upon the canal he gave his attention to engineering, establishing corners on subdivisions and relocating Government corners. In 1875 he was appointed Deputy Collector of Customs under William Chandler of Marquette, and remained in office until 1885, when his retirement was a necessary result of the change of administration by the election of Cleveland to the presidency the preceding year; but he was reappointed to the office in 1889, by the Republican official, C.Y. Osburn, who had been chosen to supplant the Democratic incumbent of the collector's position. In November, 1893, the collector and his deputy were again retired, at the instance of Mr. Cleveland, who had again been made the executive head of the nation. In May, 1894, Mr. Carleton was appointed City Engineer, having been elected County Surveyor in the fall of the preceding year. He cast his first presidential vote for William Henry Harrison in 1840, and has voted the Republican ticket at every election since.
Mr. Carleton was born in Bath, county of Grafton, New Hampshire, November 1, 1819, and his boyhood days were passed on the farm. His father, Edmund Carleton, emigrated to the Territory of Michigan in 1830, going by stage to Burlington, Vermont, then by steamer on Lake Champlain to Whitehall, from there to New York City, where he embarked for Albany, from which point he proceeded by way of the canal to Buffalo, where the family boarded the steamer, William Penn, which in due course of time landed them in Detroit. They were two months in making the journey from Burlington to Detroit, a trip that can now be accomplished in twenty hours. The family proceeded from Detroit to St. Clair county, where the father purchased a tract of unimproved land, which he finally reclaimed with the assistance of his sons and where the children were reared to maturity and taught the sterling principles of honesty, frugality and industry with which the parents were so thoroughly inbued. The father and mother disposed of the old home after the children had left them to establish homes of their own, and they passed their declining years with their daughter Alice, in Troy, Ohio, each attaining a venerable age: the father passed away in 1872, at the age of ninety years, and the mother, whose maiden name was Olive Barron, died two years before, at the age of eighty-six years. Mr. Carleton's ancestors came to America from England as early as 1639, and settled in Rowley, Massachusetts, later removed to Haverhill, same State, where the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, also Edmund by name, was born, in 1734. He was a soldier in the war of the Revolution, in Captain Nathanial Marsh's company, Major Gage's regiment, and his death occurred in 1791. The children of Edmund Carleton, Jr., and Olive (Barron) Carleton were Maria, who became the wife of Ira Eldridge and lived in Marine City, and is now deceased; Olive, who married George Kimball and died at Portland, Maine, at the age of seventy-two years; Edmund, who died in St. Clair county, Michigan, in 1867; Mary is the wife of Joseph Cox, of Shiawasee county, this state; Guy H. is the immediate subject of this biographical review; Eliza became the wife of William Eldridge and live at Cresco, Iowa; Alice, who married Jesse Shilling, Sr., of Troy, Ohio, and died in 1892; Augusta, who became the wife of William Marshall, M.D., of Hillsboro, Illinois, and died there in 1873; and Henry, who is a customs broker at Sault Ste. Marie.
October 5, 1846, in St. Clair county, Michigan, Mr. Guy H. Carleton was united in marriage to Frances Clark Hogue, who died in Sault Ste. Marie, February 19, 1859, leaving two children; Robert, who is now a resident of Neosho, Missouri, and County Treasurer of Newton county, elected on the Republican ticket November, 1894; and Alice, who became the wfie of Herbert Gallery and died August 19, 1879, and was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, near Chicago. The second marriage of Mr. Carleton occurred December 1, 1862, when he married Christine Kemp, daughter of Joseph Kemp one of the patriarchial citizens of the "Soo" who came here to reside in 1845. The children of this union are Grace Haines; Harriet Bell, wife of C.W. Given, of Sault Ste. Marie; Ella Joanna, wife of F. W. Rundle, M.D., and Louis Kemp, who died April 27, 1883, from injuries received at the age of ten years.
Mr. Carleton has been identified with the Masonic order ever since 1845, when he became a member of Evergreen Lodge at St. Clair, Michigan, and later a charter member of Bethel Lodge, No. 358, of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He has long been a zealous member of the Presbyterian Church, in which he has been an Elder ever since 1858.
Of lineage which has never been represented by men of honor and integrity, the subject of this brief review has well sustained the standard of the honored name; by his own name he has attained to a measure of success in temporal affairs; and in his later years he may well take pleasure of reviewing a career which has been true to its subject and in which no wrong has been done to any fellow being. No man can compel success; but he can do more: he can deserve it: and this Mr. Carleton certainly has done. To-day he is honored of men, and in the community where he has labored so long and so faithfully his friends are in number as his acquaintances.
Since the above sketch was prepared Mr. Carleton died, very suddenly, May 1, 1895, at 3:30 a.m. of heart failure.
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