1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

J. A. Carlton, president of the Farmers' State Bank of Walnut, is one of the most thoroughly representative business men and financiers in Crawford county and southeastern Kansas. In this capacity his worth and importance to the county and the town of his residence is well known and appreciated. But of especial interest to the reader of this history is the fact that his large success has been gained by hard and persistent industry and intelligent application beginning with the period of boyhood, and that in a varied career, connected with numerous enterprises, he has adhered steadily to the principles of rugged honesty and absolute integrity which were inculcated in him while a youth growing up among the hills of old New Hampshire. He has been progressing to the goal of his ambition throughout a period of some forty years, and as a successful, honorable and public-spirited citizen his place in Crawford county is one of broad usefulness and worth.

Mr. Carlton is a native of Conway, New Hampshire, where he was born August 2, 1846. His parents were Andrew and Nancy (West) Carlton, natives, respectively, of Vermont and New Hampshire, and both now deceased. After a brief period of educational discipline in the schools of New Hampshire, young Carlton, aged sixteen, left home and went to the New England metropolis of Boston, where he worked in an express office two years. The scene of his endeavors was then transferred to the west, and two years of his early life were spent as a school teacher at Mt. Vernon, Wisconsin, where he later became engaged in the general merchandise business. His health failing, after five years he sold out and returned to New Hampshire, where for twelve years the mercantile and lumber business engrossed his activities, and all the time he was progressing and gaining a substantial place in the world of business. Selling out his New Hampshire interests, he next spent two years in Missouri, and on December 1, 1889, arrived in Walnut, Crawford county, and engaged in the general merchandise business, which has been successfully continued for fifteen years. In March, 1904, was organized the Farmers' State Bank, of which he has since been president and most active in promoting its success. The other officers of this institution are: George Goff, cashier; D. B. Gregory, vice president; and B. E. Carlos, secretary. Mr. Carlton is also one of the largest money lenders in this part of the country, making loans on real estate, personals and chattels. On his ranch of seven thousand acres near Dodge City, Kansas, he raises large numbers of cattle and other live stock, and he also owns two fine farms in this county, besides his comfortable residence in Walnut and the block and store where his bank is located.

Mr. Carlton is, fraternally, a thirty-second degree Mason. In politics he is a Republican, and has served as mayor of his town and also as township assessor.

He was married in 1870 to Miss Mary L. Haselton, of his native town of Conway, New Hampshire. They have two children, Winifred is the wife of Hollis Cole, of Conway, New Hampshire, and the son Guy is a merchant and stock buyer of Walnut.