San Joaquin County
Biographies
STANTON L. CARTER
STANTON L. CARTER, of the law
firm of Carter & Smith, of Stockton, California, was born at Clayton, Jefferson County, New
York, on January
16, 1853. When about one year old, his father, removed to Carroll County,
Illinois, where he lived upon a farm until 1862, when his father, who had
previously emigrated to California, returned, and with his family crossed the
plains and settled upon a farm, on the Mariposa road about eight miles from
Stockton. Here the subject of this sketch, who had previously been in very
delicate health, soon became accustomed to the laborious duties of a farmer,
taking the entire charge of the farm one winter, while not twelve years old,
during a lingering sickness of his father. When opportunity afforded he
attended the only public school in the neighborhood, trudging five miles daily
for this purpose. In the fall of 1866 his father removed to a larger farm upon
the San Joaquin river, near the present railroad bridge; but the son,
having been severely injured by a runaway team, was incapacitated for hard
labor and spent the winter in attendance upon the public school. The following
year his father again removed to a larger farm, this time in Stanislaus County,
near Paradise City, where the son did a man’s work upon the farm and in the
harvest field until the close of the year 1868, when the family removed to
Stockton to enable the children to enjoy better facilities for education than
they had heretofore been afforded. The subject of this sketch, than a vigorous
lad of fifteen years, entered the grammar school, then the highest grade in the
city, and upon the establishment of the High School the following year he
became a member of the second class and graduated therefrom two years later. At
the age of eighteen years, having a strong desire to take a collegiate course,
his father offered him the use of 160 acres of land to farm for the purpose of
securing the necessary means. This he plowed and sowed to wheat himself, and
the crop grown thereon realized some $1,650; but unfortunately this money, with
others, was stolen from his father by highwaymen, who waylaid him upon his way
from Modesto to Stockton, and none of it was ever recovered. The son in the
meantime had taken charge of a warehouse at Ceres in which his father was
interested, and upon the loss of his money reluctantly abandoned the idea of
attending college; and as his father desired to have him devote himself to a
business life he remained in charge of the warehouse until 1874, when it was
sold, and in the meantime he had, during his spare time in the winter months,
taken a course of book-keeping in Heald’s Business College at San Francisco,
from which he received a diploma as an expert accountant in the spring of 1874.
Soon after this he began the study of law, spending, however, his summers upon
the farm and in the harvest fields. On April 11, 1876, he was admitted by the
Supreme Court to practice in all the courts of the State, but returned and
spent two years more in the office of the attorneys with whom he had read law,
with the exception of one summer when he took charge of and carried on his
father’s farming and threshing business, his father being confined to his bed
the entire summer.
In March, 1878, he opened an office alone
in the McKee building at Stockton,
and though without influential friends or relatives he soon acquired a large
and lucrative practice, particularly for one of his age and experience. In
September, 1879, he was appointed City Attorney for the city of Stockton, to
fill a vacancy, and was twice thereafter elected to the same position, at the
end of which time he declined to be again a candidate for the position, and
thereafter confined himself entirely to the civil practice, giving particular
attention to land titles and litigation, in which he is an acknowledged
authority. He has never held any other official position except court
commissioner of San
Joaquin County, to which he was appointed in 1883. In January, 1885,
he resigned this position for the purpose of forming the law firm of Carter,
Smith & Keniston, which continued until September, 1887, when Mr. Keniston
withdrew from the firm and retired from the practice, leaving the business in
the hands of the present firm of Carter & Smith.
Mr. Carter is a prominent and influential
member of the order of Knights of Pythias, becoming a member in 1876. He became
an officer of his lodge upon the night of his admission, and held office
continuously in the lodge and in the Grand Lodge until the spring of 1884, when
he was chosen Grand Chancellor. During his term he instituted the largest
number of new lodges ever organized in the State, averaging more than two for
each month of the term. He is the author of the official digest of the laws of
the order in use in this State, and is justly considered one of the best
authorities upon the laws of the order.
He was married at Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1879, to Miss Armenia Oliva, and has a family
consisting of two sons and a daughter.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California Pages 373-374. Lewis Pub. Co.
Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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