History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

1251

CHARLES C. CARTER. Coming an entire stranger to Detroit twentyseven years ago, Charles C. Carter has since made an enviable business
record. His business as a contracting carpenter, which has been under
his own name for ten years, has been developed along some special lines
to offer the most expert service of its kind in the city.
With an inheritance of mechanical talent from his father, Charles C.
Carter was born in England July 12, I865. His parents were John and
Amelia (Weaver) Carter, both natives of England, and the mother died
in i869 four years after the birth of her son Charles. John Carter, the
father, was born in the same year that gave birth to Queen Victoria
of England, in I819. He was a natural mechanic, could do anything in
the line of constructing, repairing or operating, and was for a number
of years a carpenter at Eastborne sixty-five miles south of London.
Later in life he gave his time to the building of pipe organs and that
work took him to different parts of England, and Charles C. being the
youngest child accompanied him. His death occurred in England in
1889. There were six children altogether, four of whom grew to maturity
and are still living as follows: Harry, born in 1853 is a school teacher
in the city of London, England; Frank, born in 1857, is a contractor
at Eastborne, Sussex county, England, and an alderman of that city;
Florence, born in 1862, married George Stirrup and they live at Ramsgate, County Kent, England; and Charles C.
His education in the public schools of England was practically terminated when he was ten years of age. A year and a half later found
him at work learning the carpenter's trade under his father. At the age
of seventeen he went from his father's supervision as a journeyman and
was employed in various places in the south of England for a year, and
in 1884 went across the channel to Paris, in which city during a year's
residence his services were employed on the erection of the American
Episcopal church building, and was the youngest carpenter among all
the force of workmen. After his return to England from Paris Mr.
Carter spent one year in his native country and in May, 1887, came to
the United States and direct to Detroit. There was not a person in the
entire city who could give him greeting as an old friend, but he had
little difficulty in finding work in his trade. With the firm of Wynn &
Marantette he worked as journeyman carpenter three years, and his
next employment was with the Hanrahan Refrigerator Company of
Detroit and Chicago. In 1892 Mr. Carter became a member of the firm
of Jenner & Carter, which relationship continued four years. For six
and a half years Mr. Carter was foreman for the late U. Armstrong &
Company. In April, 1903, his independent business enterprise began
under his own name and in the following September he bought the business of Seifert & Buhr at 155 Wayne street. Mr. Carter's present office
and factory are located at II2 Madison avenue, and his enterprise has
grown rapidly during the last ten years.
While Mr. Carter does more or less building and has erected among
others the Odd Fellows Temple on Park View avenue in 1913, the
amusement pavilion and log cabin on Bablo Island, his most profitable
and almost exclusive line is carpentering and jobbing, at which he offers
expert services in Detroit, and does more repairing by contract on the
best residences in Detroit and Grosse Pointe than any other firm in the
city. Mr. Carter also makes a specialty of appraising fire-damaged
property, and does an immense amount of work in that line in the city
and vicinity, his services being in such demand that annually his fire appraisements run between one hundred and seventy-five and two hundred cases.
Mr. Carter is a member of the Detroit Builders and Traders Ex