Charles Carter (III)

Birth: 8 MAY 1803, Albemarle Co,VA
Death: 6 FEB 1895, Talladega Co,Talladega,AL
Burial: Family Cemetery,off Rt. 5,N. of Talladega,AL

Father: John Carter
Mother: Mourning Bond

Family 1: Feriba Thurin Veazey

Marriage: 15 DEC 1827, AL

                                                              _Robert "King" Carter _
                                          _Sec. John Carter _|_Judith Armistead _____
                  _John Carter __________|
                 |                       |                    _______________________
                 |                       |_ mystery _________|_______________________
 _John Carter ___|
|                |                                            _______________________
|                |                        ___________________|_______________________
|                |_Mary Smith ___________|
|                                        |                    _______________________
|                                        |___________________|_______________________
|
|--Charles Carter 
|
|                                                             _______________________
|                                         _Charles Bond _____|_______________________
|                 _William (Billy) Bond _|
|                |                       |                    _Thomas Parks _________
|                |                       |_Mary Parks _______|_Sarah Miller _________
|_Mourning Bond _|
                 |                                            _William Saunders _____
                 |                        _Julius Saunders __|_Mary ? _______________
                 |_Elizabeth Saunders ___|
                                         |                    _______________________
                                         |_Jemima Woodward __|_______________________

INDEX

Notes

Born in VA on 8May1803. His father died when he was only 18 months old leaving him and his mother very poor. Reared at the farm of his grandparents John Burgess and Elizabeth Saunders. Moved to Alabama in 1813 when only ten years old, according to his obituary. According to other records in 1814, Mourning Bond and her children and Allen Woodward Bond and his family all moved to Madison Co. Alabama together and settled near their Uncle Claiborne Saunders. This was just after the wars between Andrew Jackson and the Creek Indians. The massacre at Ft. Mims took place on 30Aug1813 and the conclusive battle of Talladega on 8Nov1813. There were also some Carters in the area that might have been related to John. In 1820 Uncle Claiborne died. Charles' Uncle Allen W. Bond and his family moved away in 1824, to Shelby, TN where Allen eventually died. In a letter to a descendent of Allen Bond, Charles said that he was very depressed at the loss of his uncle until he started his own family three years later. He is said to have been overseer to a large slave plantation as young man. Charles married Feriba Veazey of Madison county, AL on 15Dec1827 when he was 24 and she was just barely 16. It is said by him to have been a Gretna Green affair which took place across the state line in Lincoln County, Tenn. He and his wife moved to Talladega county in 1833 when he was 30, which was 20 years after the battle of Talladega (9Nov1813) and just after the Creek treaty of 1832. Charles, at first, rented his land for three years from an Indian named Tallasehadgo. This must have been before the Indians were shipped to Oklahoma. He bought 980 acres in 1835 from Tallasehadgo and Archie Leslie (both creek Indians), one half section from each, using money loaned to him by a neighbor, Robert Jemison. They were friends and neighbors for many, many years. According to the Elliott family records, Charles' sister Patty Carter married Willis Elliott and the Elliott family moved with Charles Carter's family to Talladega together and built adjoining cabins there. They are said to have lived there together until after Patty died in 1847. It is strange that she was not buried in the farm cemetery. In 1850 Willis Elliott moved with the rest of his family to Shelby, AL. There is a story, told by Elizabeth Carter, that Charles Carter fell in love with Miss Veazey, the daughter of a prominent citizen, but was rejected by her family because of his poor prospects. He supposedly kidnapped her and moved away. I found Charles in the 1840 and 1850 Alabama census in Talladega county, but not in the 1830 census when he was about 27 years old and married only 3 years. In Charles Carter's obituary it confirms the story that he rented his land from the Indians for three years before the Indians were shipped off to Oklahoma. And it confirms that he is said to have bought his land from Tallasehadjo, a Creek Indian sub-chief, near to the junction of two important streams in the County. On the county map there are two creeks which join together about a mile behind the cabin. Elliott records say that they owned about 980 acres of land. He was a member of the Alabama state Legislature in 1857, during the War when Jeff Davis was President, and afterwards he was County Treasurer of Talladega County. While he was in the Legislature his wife Ferbia, ran a boarding house, and then the Masonic Institute, and the same building was sold to the State Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and Dr. Johnson and Sebe Johnson were in charge of this until their deaths. He is said to have been county treasurer for six years and three terms in the General Assembly. He was a signer of the ordinance of secession before the Civil War. He gave money to the Cause (Confederate) and his sons served in the Army. When he was 68 (1871) he returned to visit the home in Virginia where he was born. In a letter he said that he visited Warren, VA. In a visit to Warren, near Scottsville, I met Mr. John Morris, a long resident who's family has lived in Warren since before the Revolutionary War. He said that very few families have lived in Warren and that in the late 1800s these families were the Scotts and the Tapscotts. The Tapscotts moved to Warren from Buckingham County sometime after a Mr. Cole was shot to death. This was after1850. Charles Carter was tall, finely formed, dark skinned, had large ears, and dark eyed. He was a founder of the Owen Springs Methodist Church and remained a member to his death. He was a good shot with a squirrel rifle. He liked jokes and puzzles. He smoked from the age of 20 years all the rest of his life.

I have seen the cabin that he built north of Talladega. It is two 15 to 20 ft square two story log cabins with a dog trot hall between and a large room running the width of the two cabins combined and about 15 to 20 feet deep at the rear. A second cabin is built to the right front with corners almost touching. It consists of two rooms, one toward the first cabin and the second room away from it. A large front porch across the front of the first cabin wraps around and is shared by the second cabin. To find the cabin drive north east from Talladega on highway 21 toward Anniston and turn left onto route 5 just outside the Talladega city limits. Drive about 4.5 miles until you see a very small lake to the right of the road. Ignore a very sharp left turn and take the close-by right angle left turn onto a dirt road. The Carter farm is almost immediately to the right on this road. You will see a gate with a road leading to a rather rundown cabin (Charles Carter's cabin). To the left of the cabin, about 40 feel away is the cemetery. It is inside of a 2.5' stone wall and was overgrown with about 7' rose bushes and weeds when I last saw it in May 1992. Behind the cabin is a very large field which contained a heard of cows and a very nosy bull. There were also two or three out houses to the rear.

Charles Carter had slaves before the Civil War. In 1927 four were still living. The oldest was Jerry Harris who was 85 and blind in 1927.

The 1850 Alabama census gives some interesting data on Charles Carter's household which I have greatly supplemented with information from grave stones, spacing requirements, and Mrs. Mason (Griffin?) in Buloxi:

Charles Carter, age 49, occupation Farmer Feriba T., age 38

Martha Ann Carter, born 1829 (married before 1850?) William Henry Carter Sr., (born about 1830 and died when one year old)

Mary E. Carter, age 17 (born about 1832?) Robert J. Carter Jr., age 15 (born 1834) Margaret M. Carter, age 13 (born 12/12/1837) Virginia A. M. Carter, age 11 (born 2/29/1839) Sarah (Sally) Carter, age 9 (born 1840) Susan Elizabeth Carter, age 6 (born 1843) Sidney V. Carter, age 3, female (born 1846) Charles Franklin Carter, age 1 (born 10/29/1848)

Mourning , age 80

Hannah Veazey, age 58

James Watkins Carter (born 12/22/1850) John Albert Carter (born 3/19/1853) Augusta Steele Carter (born 6/25/1858)

Charles Carter executed an affidavit in support of his mother's claim for a Revolutionary War widows pension. In it he gives his age as 54 in 1857. He also said in the affidavit that he left VA 42 years earlier. That would have made him 12 years old when he left and the year 1815. He said that his father served almost three years during the war and that VA was 1100 miles way from where he was then.

E. Grace Jemison, Historic Tales of Talladega (Library of Congress).

See house plan in folder.

There are several stories about Charles Carter from his Great-granddaughter, Francis Griffin, in Mississippi. One of the stories about Grandfather Carter was that in his final years he had a man who looked after him by the name of Jonah. He was very fond of the man but had difficulty remembering his name so when Jonah was out of the room, Grandfather would pound the floor with his cane and yell "the man that swallowed the whale, the man that swallowed the whale." And he got action. A lady who was friends with Uncle John's daughters, Narnie and Sarah, told me when she was visiting them over-night once the following happened. Each evening, the family had prayers with all the family kneeling and Grandfather Carter leading the prayer session. The family owned a small terrier-type dog. That evening as everyone's head was bowed and Grandfather Carter started to pray, the dog jumped up on his back and with each word he said, the dog barked. The dog was brushed off but right back he came. Of course, the children began to laugh. Grandfather finally gave up, saying "maybe God wants to hear the dog more than me."

According to Thomas M Owen, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography (S. J. Clarke Publishing Co, Chicago, 1921), p. 1294 the Alabama state representatives from Talladega County during the Civil war were: 1857-58-James B. Martin, John T. Bell, D. H. Remson 1859-60-Lewis E. Parsons, John T. Bell, Charles Carter 1860-61-Lewis E. Parsons, John T. Bell, Charles Carter 1861(first called)- Lewis E. Parsons, John T. Bell, Charles Carter 1861(second called)- Levi W. Lawler, George S. Walden, Charles Carter 1861-62-Levi W. Lawler, George S. Walden, Charles Carter 1862-63-Levi W. Lawler, George S. Walden, Charles Carter 1863(called)-Levi W. Lawler, Lewis E. Parsons 1863-64-Levi W. Lawler, Lewis E. Parsons 1864-65-Levi W. Lawler, Lewis E. Parsons 1865-66-George P. Plowman, J. D. Mc-Cann, James W. Hardie 1866-87-George P. Plowman, J. D. Mc-Cann, James W. Hardie 1868-E. T. Childress, H. W. W. Rice 1869-70-E. T. Childress, H. W. W. Rice

According to his son J. W. Carter, in 1857, during the inauguration of Buchanan, Charles Carter visited an old uncle in Warren, VA who lived in the house were Charles was born. It was the only time he ever visited his old house (were he was born according to J. W. Carter) in Warren Virginia from the time he left at seven. I have found out from Mr. John L. Morris, Jr., that the Tapscotts were one of the few families living in Warren at the time. He gave me the name of Don Howard, in California, a descendent of the Tapscotts, who verified that his ancestors were James Tapscott and Martha Burgess, and that they lived in Warren's Ferry about 1800. I am sure that it was they who Charles Carter visited. James Watkins Carter, in his letter to Mrs. Curry, said that the Tapscotts were living in the house in which Charles Carter was born. It would locate John Carter there if it were true. However, Mr. Morris didn't know of any Carters who lived in the county except Edward Carter's family.

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Created by Sparrowhawk 1.0 (4/17/1996) on Wed Dec 1 10:30:08 1999