City: Nashville
CARELS, Joseph Stineford, born in Philadelphia, Pa., Aug., 30, 1825; one of a family of sixteen; graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia, Pa., in 1843, received from it the degree of Master of Arts in 1851; moved to Murfreesboro, Tenn., in 1845; he became a member of Mount Moriah Lodge of Masons at Murfreesboro, Tenn., in 1846; was made its Worshipful Master in 1852; in 1857 he moved to Lebanon, Tenn., being book-keeper and teller there in Bank of Middle Tennessee; in 1862 he presented to the Secretary of the United States Navy a petition, endorsed by every Representative and Senator of the State for a position in the navy, and was appointed assistant paymaster; was attached to the steamer Clifton in Admiral Farragut’s West Gulf squadron, but at the end of one year was compelled to resign on account of illness; moved to Nashville in 1863 and was made book-keeper and stamp clerk in the postoffice by A. V. S. LiNDSLEY, then postmaster; he was assistant under Postmasters HOPKINS, EMBRY, and HASSLOCK; in 1875 he was made inspector of the money order department of the South and Southwest, in which capacity he served a year, when he returned to Nashville and was again made assistant postmaster until the appointment of General Cheatham as postmaster; he has been superintendent of Watkins Institute and librarian and treasurer of the Tennessee Historical Society for nearly thirty years; for forty-four consecutive years he has been the Secretary of the Cumberland Lodge of Masons in Nashville, and as regards length of membership is the oldest Mason in Tennessee.
