PULASKI CARTER, deceased, was one of the strongest characters and most useful men of his day. He inherited in marked degree the sterling straits of his New England ancestry, and his name was ever a synonym for the strictest integrity and most uncompromising devotion to principle. His family has been from the beginning of its history in America, notable for patriotism and public spirit of the highest quality.
The first Carters of whom we have authentic record in this country are Thomas Carter, blacksmith, and Mary his wife. Their names appear upon the church record in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1636. They were married in England. Their children were: Thomas, Joseph, Samuel, John, Mary and Hannah. The will of Thomas Carter, senior, was recorded in 1652. He died possessed of considerable landed property. His wife died in 1664, and her death is thus recorded: "Mary Carter, mother of the Carters in town."
Headstone in Westminster Church Cemetery,
Westminster, Canterbury, Connecticut
Joseph
Carter, second son of Thomas, was a currier. He married Susanna ---, in
1662. He was first of Charlestown, but later lived on the old Bellerica
road, Woburn, Massachusetts, with his son, Joseph, junior. He died
December
30, 1676. Joseph, junior, lived in Woburn, Massachusetts, married
Bethia
Pearson, and at his demise in 1692, left three sons and three
daughters.
His son John, born February 26, 1676, moved to Canterbury, Connecticut,
with his wife Mary about 1706. He was the father of John, junior, born
in Canterbury, February 24, 1709. John, junior, married Deborah Bundy,
and they had nine children. His son Joseph was born July 18, 1736. He
married
Patience Pellet, October 3, 1762. He served as quartermaster in the
Revolution,
and died August 15, 1796 (stone at left is wrong).
Phineas, son of Joseph and Patience (Pellet) Carter, was born November 23, 1766. He was a landed proprietor of Westminster, Connecticut, and a man of strong character and strict integrity, upright to the point of austerity; a devout Christian of the Congregational faith, rigid in exacting observance of religious forms and ceremonies; and strict in his family discipline. He married Cynthia Butts, a woman of gentle nature and lovable traits of character. She was born March 16, 1773, and came of a family of prominence in the public and private colonial life of New England. Her father, Deacon Stephen Butts, of Westminster, Connecticut, born June 15, 1749, was the son of Joseph Butts, born March 17, 1711. The father of Joseph was Samuel Butts, who married Sarah Maxfield, July 22, 1701. Samuel Butts was a man of distinction in many respects, and the record of his official services is preserved in the archives of the state of Connecticut. He was elected thirteen times to the colonial assembly from Canterbury, Connecticut, during the period 1715 and 1729, and was otherwise conspicuous in the community. His father was Richard Butts. He married Deliverance Hoppin, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Hoppin, who came from England to Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1636. Phineas Carter died November 8, 1840, long surviving his wife, who died March 19, 1814.
Pulaski Carter, son of Phineas and Cynthia (Butts) Carter, born in Westminster, Windham County, Connecticut, June 23, 1813, was only nine months old when his mother died. His father desired for him the career of a physician, and was much disappointed when the young man's inclination turned toward mechanics, and he went to Brooklyn, Connecticut, where he learned blacksmithing. On completing his apprenticeship he went to Winsted, Connecticut, where he entered the shop of Captain Wheelock Thayer, and there gained a thorough practical knowledge of scythe-making. He first visited Pennsylvania in 1840, at which time he went to Honesdale and several other localities, finally deciding to locate in Providence (now the first ward of Scranton). In 1841 he returned there and engaged in scythe-making. In June of the following year, in company with Jerrison White, he purchased the Sager & White Axe factory, and began the manufacturer of axes as well as scythes—the first factory of the kind in the state. He shortly afterward acquired his partner's interest, and in 1843 associated with himself a boyhood friend, Henry Harrison Crane. Mr. Crane subsequently disposed of his interest in the business, but still remained in the works. Mr. Carter then took as partner Artemus Miller, but this partnership was soon dissolved, Mr. Carter assuming the entire ownership and management of the business.
Meanwhile Mr. Carter had laid the foundations of the enterprise which came to be known as "The Capouse Works" (so named after the old Indian chief of the Monseys, from whom also the Capouse Meadows received their name), purchasing a thirty-acre tract of land from Henry Heermans, and erecting thereon shops, etc., sufficient to commence business, and here was made the wide reputation of the "Carter axes" which were for many years unrivaled. In 1864 the factory burned down, entailing a most serious loss, the insurance being wholly inadequate to defray the cost of rebuilding. In this hour of his great disaster, Mr. Carter was proffered abundance of financial aid by persons who appreciated his enterprise and had implicit confidence in his ability and integrity. These evidences of confidence he gratefully declined, and he build and equipped an entirely new and improved factory which for many years was one of the important industries of the valley, and this was accomplished with the preservation of that personal independence and self-reliance of which he was so justly proud. [In 1864 Pulaski Carter incorporated under a new name with partners and the ability to sell stock. Perhaps Amelia was not informed of this.] His business career ended only with his death, and he maintained to the last his deep interest and pride in the great enterprise which was the creature of his own brain and hands.
In his relations to the community at large, Mr. Carter bore himself with the same dignity and conscientiousness that characterized the conduct of his business affairs. Whatever claimed his attention received from him the deepest interest and best efforts of which his heart and mind were capable. The parental training had indoctrinated him with the loftiest conceptions of an all-comprehending morality, and, when he first left the paternal roof, he came under influences which intensified his thought along the same lines. In the first days of his blacksmith apprenticeship, youth as he was, he became acquainted with the philosophy of the famous Concord and Brook Farm School. This was brought about through the Unitarian minister at Brooklyn, Connecticut, the Rev. Samuel J. May (intimate friend of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Ralph Waldo Emerson), who allowed him free access to his library and aided him in his reading. So impressed was the young man wit the field of thought to which he was thus introduced, that in after years he was able to repeat from memory entire pages from the volumes which he read in those early days, and the sentiments which he imbibed colored his whole life. A signal exemplification of this was seen in 1846, when the free school idea was first broached. With a heart inspired with the most liberal New England ideas as to education, Mr. Carter, then a young man of thirty-four, threw himself into the struggle with all the intensity of his nature, and traversed the valley back and forth, preaching the gospel of free schools. An earnest and forceful speaker, he produced a deep impression. Nor was he content with this effort; he followed his appeals with labors of organization, and, when the question came before the people, had his followers so well in hand that a decisive victory was won at the polls. Thus was the free school planted in Providence, at a time when Scranton was little more than a name upon the map. Mr. Carter followed his success with yet more practical effort, donating the land on which was erected the first free school building in the place, and he maintained an undiminished interest in educational affairs throughout his life. In 1857 the first graded schoolhouse was built, and in the public celebration of that event Mr. Carter was awarded high praise as the corner-stone upon which the free school cause had been founded. For twenty-eight years he served as director and treasurer of the Providence school board, and this fact speaks yet more eloquently of his heartfelt interest in the cause which he had so long and faithfully championed, for, naturally of a retiring disposition, and averse to public prominence, he had steadfastly declined the mayoralty and other important positions which he was solicited to accept. His considerate humanitarianism found eloquent expression in his efforts in behalf of temperance. His voice was ever heard in denunciation of the evils of the liquor traffic, persistently opposed to granting of licenses, and the saloon keepers greatly dreaded and feared him. But he went far in advance of the great mass of temperance agitators. He gave his personal effort to the reclamation of the drunkard, and rescued many a one from a life of poverty and shame, and aided him to an honest and happy establishment in life.
Mr. Carter was twice married, first, August 5, 1839, to Susan
S. Spaulding,
of Abington, Connecticut, about the time he had completed his trade,
and
two years before he located in Providence. The year of his coming
(1841)
a child was born to them, but death claimed the young mother a month
later,
and in the following summer the little one also died.
Mr. Carter married (second) August 7, 1843, Olive Ingalls, of
Canterbury,
Connecticut, a double cousin of his first wife. Her ancestry is traced
to the early colonial period, her emigrant ancestor being Edmund
Ingalls,
son of Robert Ingalls, and grandson of Henry Skirbeck. Edmund Ingalls
was
a native of England, born in Lincolnshire in 1598. He came to Salem,
Massachusetts,
in 1628, with Governor Endicott’s company. In 1629, with his brother
Francis
and four others, he founded the settlement at Lynn, Massachusetts. In
1648,
while traveling on horseback to Boston, he came to his death by
drowning
in the Saugus river, the accident resulting from a defective bridge.
His
son Henry, born in 1627, died 1719, was a landowner in Ipswich, and was
one of the first settlers of Andover, where he bought land from the
Indians,
making payment with clothing and trinkets. He was a wealthy man for the
times, and took a leading part in town affairs. He married Mary Osgood,
July 6, 1653, a daughter of John Osgood, who was the first
representative
to the general court from Andover, in 1651. It is the first record of a
marriage in Andover. The ceremony was performed by Rev. Simon
Bradstreet,
following the Puritan doctrine and belief in marriage as a civil
compact.
Their son Henry, like his father, was prominent in colonial affairs.
Joseph
Ingalls, son of Henry, Jr., was born in Andover in 1697, and married
Phoebe,
daughter of John Farnham. Their son, Joseph, Jr., born 1723, removed to
Pomfret, Connecticut; he married Sarah Abbott, daughter of Paul and
Elizabeth
(Gray) Abbott, and died in 1790.
Their son, Peter Ingalls, born 1752, died 1783, served in the war of the Revolution. He married Sarah Ashley, and the homestead built by him is still standing and remains in the ownership of descended relatives of his daughter, at Elliott, Connecticut. His son Marvin, who served in the war of 1812, born 1789, married Amelia Spaulding, who came from an old colonial family. Her father, James Spaulding, lived at Windham, and was one of Putnam’s militia that marched to Lexington, and was also in the company that marched to Cambridge in the early period of the revolutionary war, and his name appears on the pension roll of Revolutionary soldiers in 1815. He was descended from Edward Spaulding, whose family records go back to an early period of English history, and numbered at least one eminent divine among its members. Edward Spaulding settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, between 1630 and 1633, where he was prominent in town affairs, being a selectman and also for many a surveyor of highways. He was a landed proprietor and left a large estate. The crest of the Spaulding family bears the motto "Hinc mihi salus."
Pulaski and Olive (Ingalls) Carter had three children: Amelia Maria, Pulaski Pliny, and Marvin Phineas.
Amelia Maria Carter was born April 29, 1844. She married William DeWitt Kennedy, February 11, 1868.
Mr. Kennedy is of Scotch-Irish and French-Dutch ancestry. One of his ancestors of his mother's side was chaplain in Cromwell’s army. His father was James Schofield Kennedy. He was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Schofield) Kennedy. The father of Thomas was John, whose family was of Scotch-Irish lineage. He was born April 24, 1739, and came to America from Bangor, Ireland, in 1763. He was of the Scotch Presbyterian faith. He settled in Kingston, New York, and later married Mrs. Josiah (Armstrong) Van Fleet, widow. Soon after his marriage in 1780 they moved to Wyoming Valley.
His mother was Pauline Jayne (the original form of the family name being "De Jeanne") the daughter of Samuel and Elsie Stephens Jayne, the latter being the daughter of the Rev. David Jayne, whose wife was Elizabeth DeWitt, a cousin of the wife of General James Clinton, of Revolutionary fame. The grandfather of Mrs. Kennedy, the Rev. David Jayne, served in a New Jersey regiment in the Revolution, and took up a large and valuable section of "soldier land" near Lake Cayuga, New York. Her grandfather, Ebenezer Stephens, entered the Revolutionary army at the age of seventeen, and remained in service the entire seven years of the war. He drew a pension at Wilkes-Barre as long as he lived.
Mr. Kennedy is a director of the Scranton Savings Bank, and is otherwise prominent in the business life of the city. He was many years a trustee in the Providence Presbyterian church, and now serves in the same capacity in the church at Green Ridge, his present place of residence. He served in the war of the rebellion in the Thirtieth Regiment Pennsylvania Reserves, during the emergency, when the state was invaded, and the last year of the war as quartermaster's clerk in the Fiftieth New York Regiment (Engineer Corps), and is now a member of Ezra Griffith Post, No. 139, G. A. R.
Mrs. Kennedy graduated from East Greenwich Seminary, East Greenwich, Rhode Island, in 1865. She has been for many years interested in the philanthropic movements of the city, particularly in connection with the Home for the Friendless. She has been on its board of managers for twenty-three years, and has held many offices from secretary to president. For some years she has been vice-president of the Young Woman's Christian Association. For thirty years she was an active member of the Providence Presbyterian church, but since 1893, has been identified wit the Presbyterian church at Green Ridge.
Mr. And Mrs. Kennedy are the parents of four children: 1. William Pulaski, born October 30, 1869, graduated from Scranton high school, class of 1889. He is teller of the People's Bank of Scranton. He married Georgina, daughter of George R. Kittle, who was also a graduate of Scranton high school, class of 1889. 2. Dr. Lucius Carter, born September 8, 1872, graduated from Princeton College in 1895, and from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1898, and is now a practicing physician in Scranton. 3. Kathrine May, born November 11, 1875, graduated at School of Lackawanna, and is the wife of Dr. William A. Sherman, of Newport, Rhode Island, who is descended from one of the first settlers of Rhode Island. He graduated from Harvard College in 1899, and from the medical department in 1902. 4. Harold Sherman, born November 28, 1884, graduated at Blair (New Jersey) Academy, class of 1905.
YWCA and Carter Building [built in 1896], Scranton, PA, c. 1909
Pulaski Pliny, second child of Pulaski and Olive (Ingalls) Carter, was born June 6, 1849. He was educated at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and at Fort Edward Institute. He is largely interested in real estate enterprises, and is owner of the large office building at the corner of Adams avenue and Linden street, Scranton. He married, June 6, 1882, Venitia White, born February 11, 1862, daughter of Joseph M. and Phebe A. (Cole) White, daughter of Immanual Cole, the latter of excellent English descent. Joseph White was the son of Ephraim White, of White's Mills, near Honesdale, who was the son of Ezekiel White (Third) the son of Ezekiel White, Jr., and Sarah Vinton White. He was the son of Ezekiel White (1st) who married Abigail Blanchard. Ezekiel (1st) was the son of Captain Ebenezer White, whose wife was Hannah Phillips. Captain Ebenezer was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, and was a son of Thomas White (wife's name unknown) who was admitted a freeman in Massachusetts colony 1635-6. Place of nativity in England unknown. He was among the early settlers of Weymouth, and a member of the church there; many years a selectman, often on important committees, and also commanded a military company, and was representative to the general court in 1637, 1640, 1657 and 1671.
There were born to Pulaski Pliny and Venitia (White) Carter, six children: 1. Pulaski, born June 2, 1883, a graduate of the Scranton high school, class of 1903, now a sophomore at the Boston School of Technology {and Columbia University; married Pearl Lidstone}. 2. Phebe, born September 14, 1885, graduated of the Scranton high school, class of 1904 {educated Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, and Columbia University, receiving the degree of A. M. in 1913 [sic]; teacher in Technical High School, Scranton}. 3. Ina, born March 1, 1888, died January 26, 1897. 4. Olive Ingalls, born November 9, 1890, senior in Scranton high school {educated Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, and Columbia University, receiving the degree of A. M. in 1913; teacher in Meriden High School, Meriden, Connecticut}. 5. Ada, born November 3, 1893 {educated in Scranton High School and Smith College, attending the latter institution at the present time (1914)}. 6. Roy, born July 13, 1899 {a student in Scranton High School}.
Marvin Phineas, youngest child of Pulaski and Olive (Ingalls) Carter, was born November 28, 1857. He was graduated at East Greenwich, Rhode Island. He is one of the successful business men in Scranton, the owner of valuable real estate, a director in the People's Bank, and otherwise actively identified with the business of the city. He married Minnie Parmelia Murphy, born June 26, 1863, daughter of John {Archbald} Murphy, of Warrenville, Connecticut. He was several times elected to the state legislature, and is a man of business prominence in the town where he resides. Her mother was Mary, daughter of Benjamin Spaulding, descended from Edmund, who came to Braintree, Massachusetts, about 1630. To them were born three children: 1. Marvin Clarence, born July 29, 1885, a graduate of the high school, class of 1905, freshman in Lafayette College {graduated}. 2. Lucius, born November 20, 1887, died June 3, 1889. 3. Marguerite, born May 30, 1889, a senior in Scranton high school {graduated, graduated of Mr. Holyoke College, Mr. Holyoke, Massachusetts}.
Mr. Carter, the father of the family above named, whose career as a man of affairs and a humanitarian has been treated of in the foregoing narrative, met with a dreadful accident from the effects of which he never entirely recovered, and which doubtless shortened his life. In November, 1876, while driving in his carriage, his vehicle was driven into one each side by two teams driven by drunken racers. Mr. Carter was caught in the wreckage and so seriously injured that for some days his life was despaired of. His excellent constitution, unimpaired by reason of his abstemious habits, enabled him to resume his accustomed avocations, but he never regained his old vigor. He died October 13, 1884, aged seventy-one years, leaving to survive him his widow and their three children. His widow died December 8, 1898.
[This also appeared, with some updates as noted in {
} brackets,
in HISTORY OF SCRANTON and Its People, Vol II pages
194-99, by Col.
Frederick L. Hitchcock, 1914]
This letter was purchased from an eBay seller in Florida. Pulaski
Carter wrote an outline of his genealogy to someone he was told was
interested.
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