William Blount CARTER was born where he now resides, in Elizabethton, September 11,1820, the son of Alford M. and Evaline (Perry) CARTER, the former born near Elizabethton in 1785, the son of Gen. Landon CARTER, of Virginia, the son of Col. John CARTER, a pioneer of Tennessee of 1769, and chairman of the Watauga Association, from that date to 1777. Gen. CARTER was in the Revolution, and a member of the Legislature, and of the Constitutional Convention of 1796; he died in 1800. The father was educated at Washington College under Dr. DOAK and was devoted to farming and iron interests. He was a magistrate and the first circuit clerk of his county, and died in 1850. The mother was born at Staunton, Va., in 1797, the daughter of David PERRY, a native of Virginia, and of the family to which Commodore Perry belonged. He settled in Greene County, and the mother died in 1877. They were married in 1818, and our subject, the second of three sons, was reared in Elizabethton, attended Washington College, and graduated from Prince ton (N. J.) Theological Seminary.
He was pastor of Rogersville Presbyterian Church until 1846 when his health compelled him to be a farmer at Elizabethton. In 1843 he married Mary H., a daughter of Dr. Charles FOWLER, of New York; she died in 1846, and in 1850 he married Elizabeth J., a daughter of Col. William J. BROWN of Pennsylvania. Their children are William E., born June 19, 1856, now a druggist; Mary B. born in 1860, and Caroline E., born in 1867. The family are Presbyterians.
The Watauga Association was represented by John CARTER in two constitutional conventions in North Carolina before 1789, and one in Tennessee in 1796, was represented by Gen. Landon CARTER, and the next constitutional convention by Gen. William B. CARTER, who was president of the same, and was a Congressman several terms. In 1870 our subject represented Carter County in the constitutional convention. Samuel P., an elder brother of William B., was educated at Washington and Princeton Colleges, and became a middy in the United States Navy in 1840, and was a lieutenant-commander at the opening of war, and then in the army became brigadier-general, and afterward major-general, then became captain of the navy, and was retired at the age of sixty-two, with the rank of rear-admiral, now residing at Washington. James P. T., a younger brother, was born July 29, 1822, and educated at Washington College, and became a colonel of the Second Federal Tennessee Mounted Infantry, President Johnson appointed him secretary of Arizona Territory, but he was removed by Gen. GRANT, and died in Mexico. It is a singular coincidence that in each constitutional convention held between the years 1770 and 1870 the people of Wautauga were represented by a member of the same family; first by Col. John CARTER, in 1796 by his son, Gen. Landon CARTER; in 1834 by his grandson, Gen. William B. CARTER, and in 1870 by his great-grandson, William B. CARTER, Jr.
Transcribed by Kris L. Martin
Source: Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of from Twenty-Five to Thirty Counties of East Tennessee. Chicago: Goodspeed, 1887.