MARION CARTER is a native of Adams County, member of one of the old families here, and for many years has been successfully identified with agriculture in Liberty Township. His farm is four miles east of Liberty Village.
He was born in McKee Township May 6, 1850, son of Travis and Patsy (Fuqua) Carter. His father a native of Kentucky, came to Adams County in the early days and settled in McKee Township, where he devoted his active life to developing a farm. He died there at the age of fifty. Patsy Carter died when Marion was a small child. Travis Carter afterward married Lucy Fuqua, sister of his first wife. After his death she became the wife of George Cutforth, one of the well known old residents of McKee Township, where both of them died in advanced years. the children of Travis and Patsy Carter were: Mary, who married Charles Cutforth, a son of George, above mentioned, and both of them are now deceased; Martha, who married Wash Sparks, both deceased; Kittie, who married Jacob Hearlson, both deceased; Robert, Charles Fessenden, of Adams county, and both are deceased; and Marion, the youngest and only survivor. George and Lucy Cutforth had two daughters, Janie, wife of George Hess, of McKee township; and Eva, wife of Charles Robb, of Colorado.
Marion Carter was about eighteen years old when his father died. He carried on the farm for several years and on August 24, 1871, he married Miss Emma Gordon. Her parents were John and Elizabeth (Howe) Gordon, and their home was the farm where Marion Carter now lives. Mrs. Carter was born there and was about nineteen years of age at the time of her marriage. Her parents both came from Kentucky and they developed the present Carter farm. After his marriage Marion Carter spent one year on the home place in McKee Township, and then bought a farm near the Gordon home. A few years later, after the death of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, he bought their property, comprising forty acres in the home place and a second forty acres a mile distant in McKee Township. Mr. Carter has lived there ever since and has made his proprietorship count for many improvements in the farm. Mrs. Carter died May 20, 1891, at the age of thirty-eight. She was the mother of nine children, eight of whom reached mature years. Fred, a farmer in South Dakota; Alonzo and Roy, both farmers in South Dakota; Herschel, who died in Cass County, Iowa, at the age of forty years; Adam, of Cumberland, Iowa; Harry of Liberty Township; and Ethel and Erva, Twins, the former Mrs. Charles Fischer of Selma, Montana.
On March 24, 1894, Mr. Carter married Ellen, better known as Nell, Barnard, daughter of Francis Marion and Susan (Pearce) Barnard. Some records of the Barnard family are published on other pages of this publication. F. M. Barnard died November 14, 1916, and his wife on July 19, 1913. Mrs. Carter is one of six living children: Sarah, Mrs. John Robb, of Decaatur, Arkansas; Guilford, whose postoffice is Waldron, Kansas, but whose home is in Oklahoma; Elizabeth, wife of Isaac Miller, of Macomb, Illinois; Jane, Mrs. Henry Hughes, of Annabell, Missouri; Mrs. Carter; and Minnie, wife of Julius Kline, of Liberty Township.
At the age of twenty years Mrs. Carter began teaching in Liberty Township, and followed that profession for twelve years before her marriage. She was well educated in the local schools, had a short course in Chaddock College, and while teaching attended institutes every year. She has always kept an active intrest in educational matters and especially in Sunday School work. She was a Sunday School superintendent for several years and is still a teacher. She has also been a worker in the Red Cross and other war movements. Mr. and Mrs. Carter have one daughter, Ivan, who was at home with her parents during the absence of her husband Lawrence Graff, a soldier with the American Expeditionary Forces in France, but now at home.
Mr. Carter has rebuilt and remodeled his present home, and constructed a number of the outside buildings. He is a republican and a member of the Pleasant View Baptist Church.
File contributed by Mary Love Berryman
Source: Quincy and Adams County History and Representative Men, pp 1071-1072; by David Wilcox. Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1919.
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