Carter, Theodore George, 1832-1914.

Theodore George Carter was born on February 28, 1832 in Friendship (Allegany County), New York, the son of Miles and Margaretta Loughborough Carter. Following an education in Yorkshire, where the family settled in 1834, and the Richburg academy (1849-1851), Carter was employed in several small New York communities as a carpenter, paperhanger, and housepainter. In 1854 he settled in Olean, New York, apprenticing as a machinist under his brother Nathan.

In the autumn of 1855 Nathan moved to Minnesota, homesteading on Lake Washington in LeSueur County the following spring. Carter soon followed his brother, obtaining employment as a surveyor and, in 1858, becoming land examiner for the Winona and St. Peter Railroad Company. In September 1859 he moved to St. Peter, adding the positions of U.S. Land Office agent (1860) and clerk in the private bank of Edgerton and Donahower (1861) to his other activities. On November 12, 1860 he married Margaret "Maggie" O. Byam (1833-1912). The couple had eight children: Albert Byam (1861- ), Lolette (1863-1863), Willie (1866-1867), Anna Adelle "Dell" (1868- ), Margaret Belle (1870- ), Nona Rosa Blossom (1872- ), Theodore George (1874-1875), and Bessie J. (1877- ).

On August 13, 1862 Carter joined in the formation of the Cleveland Guard, a group of Union recruits from LeSueur County. They were mustered in at Fort Snelling on August 16, 1862 as Company K, Seventh Regiment, Minnesota Infantry, with Carter holding the rank of first lieutenant. The company served in Minnesota, mainly as guard to the Dakota prisoners taken during the U.S.-Dakota War, in the 1863 Sibley Indian expedition into Dakota Territory, and in the southern states. Carter was promoted to captain on March 8, 1863, and held that rank until the company was mustered out on August 16, 1865.

Upon his return to St. Peter he resumed his position with Edgerton and Donahower. In 1867 he left the bank to form Carter and Montgomery, a real estate and fire insurance firm, with Thomas Montgomery. He also continued in the position of Winona and St. Peter Railroad Company land examiner. In 1870 he moved to a farm near St. Peter and added a nursery business to his many activities. Due to the grasshopper plagues of the 1870s, however, he nearly reached bankruptcy and in 1883 moved back into St. Peter.

In 1880 he accepted the position of right-of-way agent with the Chicago and North Western Railroad Company (C&NWRR), successor of the Winona and St. Peter Railroad Company, and dissolved his partnership in Carter and Montgomery. Between 1880 and 1890 he traveled throughout Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, and Wyoming surveying and purchasing rights-of-way for the railroad.

In April 1891 he moved to Deadwood, South Dakota where he assumed the added position of right-of-way agent for the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad (FE&MVRR). He also began the private purchase, sale, and leasing of mining claims on a commission basis.

Carter retired from the C&NWRR in 1903, working as a private mining and real estate agent until he returned to St. Peter in 1905. From then until his death in 1914, he divided his time between St. Peter, Deadwood, and the homes of his children in Florida.

Carter was also very active in a number of fraternal organizations during his life, particularly the Sons of the American Revolution, Sons of Temperance, and the Grand Army of the Republic, holding many offices in all three.

All biographical information was taken from the collection.

From the guide to the Theodore G. Carter and family papers., 1834-1922., (Minnesota Historical Society)