San Francisco County
Biographies
GEORGE HENRY CARLETON
GEORGE HENRY CARLETON, City Electrician of Oakland was born
in Belfast, Maine,
June 18, 1844, the son of Henry Erskine and Hephzibah (Eames) Carleton. His
mother was born in August, 1812, of New England descent
for several generations, and is still living. His father, a native of Winthrop,
Maine, and a house and ship Carpenter and
contractor by vocation, died in 1877, aged seventy years. His maternal
grandfather, Erskine, was a soldier of the Revolution; his gun, “Queen’s Arms,”
was made in 1768. What is left of it is still treasured in the family, being
now preserved at the home of Mrs. H. E. Carleton in Berkeley.
Guy Carleton, sent over to this country to counsel with reference to treaty at
the close of our Revolutionary war, was a great-grandfather of the subject of this notice.
Mr.
Carleton, our subject, came to California by way of Cape Horn, in 1852, with
his mother, his father having come in 1849-’50. His first business here was
contracting and building. Later he became a farmer on the San Pablo
road near West Berkeley, where the family homestead is
still retained by Mrs. Carleton, his mother, and occupied also by a brother,
Charles Edward. Mr. Carleton was educated in San Francisco,
being a member of the first high school class, probably the first in the state.
He was with his father during 1857-9, on their then new tract of land in Contra
Costa County.
In the latter year he settled upon his present tract of 100 acres on the San
Pablo road. At the age of seventeen years he went to
sea, and was engaged in the coast trade and with the Sandwich
Islands. At the age of nineteen he began to learn the trade of
carpentry, serving a three year apprenticeship. Returning to seafaring life, he
became a master of a coaster, and continued on the ocean until 1867, and then
he began to pick up his present line of work, beginning with the Western Union Telegraph
Company. He built their telegraph lines in Northern California, while in the
company of the old “California Telegraph Company,” since incorporated into the Western
Union. In 1869 he followed his trade as carpenter in Oakland for a
short time, when he was appointed a member of the police department of the city
of Oakland, and acted as patrolman, and he has been a member of that department
every since. In 1870 the chief of police asked him to put up a city telegraph
system in Oakland for the fire and
police departments. He did so, and has since been improving it until it is now
one of the best in the State. In 1875 he was appointed city Electrician, and
has been regularly reappointed for every term since. In 1883 he introduced an
independent system for the patrol wagons, the first on this side of the Rocky
Mountains. He was, perhaps, the originator of the system
introduced in Chicago in 1884.
Mr.
Carleton is a member of the Oak Grove Lodge, No 61, F.
& A. M. He married in 1876, in Oakland, to Henrietta
Charlington, who was born in the State of New York,
a daughter of John Charlington, an Englishman. Who came to America
when a boy and was married in New York
State. Having also considerable
musical talent, Mr. Carleton sang in Trinity church, in San Francisco,
from 1859 to 1865, and afterwards in Oakland.
He has done a great deal of concert work. Of late years, however, his business
has more engrossed his time.
Transcribed by Kim Buck.
Source: "The Bay of San
Francisco," Vol. 2, Pages 527-528,
Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2006 Kim Buck.
California
Biography Project
San
Francisco County
California
Statewide
Golden
Nugget Library