Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 210 - 211

 GEORGE CHARLTON, a retired merchant of Wichita, first located here in June, 1877, where he engaged in the crockery business with E. A. Huse, under the firm name of Huse & Charlton.  This line of trade they followed with great pecuniary success until June, 1887, when they sold out, since which time Mr. Charlton has retired from the cares of active business life, simply attending to his investments in real estate and in collecting his rents. 

     The subject of our sketch is a native of England, having been born in Manchester, May 24, 1851.  His parents, George and Hannah (Crowther) Charlton, were also of English birth and ancestry; the father was a baker by trade and a manufacturer of fine confectionery.  The paternal grandparents of our subject were Thomas and Mary (Wood) Charlton.  Nine children comprised the household of George and Hannah Charlton, seven of whom are living, namely: Mary A., James, Elizabeth A.; George, the subject of this sketch; Sarah J., John and Eleanor.  The father died in England, April 16, 1871, at the age of fifty-eight years.  In 1881 the mother came to America, and is now living in Houston, Tex., with one of her sons.

      The subject of this sketch, at the age of seven years, commenced work in a silk factory in his native city where, however, he only remained a short time.  He engaged in some light employment in a rope walk; but a short time afterward entered a cotton-mill at Manchester, the great cotton manufacturing city of England.  Determined, however, to become master of a trade, he served three years in a machine-shop, but was not suited with the business.  Like many other of his countrymen, he felt the difficulty of rising in the world or bettering his fortune among the over-crowded population of his seagirt home, and before he was seventeen years old he determined to emigrate.  On the 19th of April, 1868, he embarked at Liverpool, and crossing the ocean, arrived in New York City May 4, with only $5 in money, and a railroad ticket for Chicago, Ill., in his pocket.  After journeying westward to the metropolis of the lakes, he started for Waukegan, Ill., where he anticipated meeting his brother, who had previously come to this country.  Fate, however, was adverse to him, for on reaching the latter place he found that his relative had gone to Nebraska, so being out of means, he hired his services to a farmer for $8 per month for the season.  In the fall he went to Nebraska and found the missing brother near Omaha.  After putting in a few months in a machine-shop at Omaha, the brothers returned to Chicago, from which place our subject moved to Waukegan, where he worked at a carpenter's bench for about two years.  Going to Quincy, Ill., in 1870, he again took up his trade, and followed it in that city, in St. Louis, Mo., Jackson, Miss., New Orleans and Baton Rouge.  While at work in St. Louis he had the misfortune to fall from a three-story building to the basement, by which he was seriously hurt, his limbs being paralyzed for some time thereafter.  Late in the winter of 1872 he returned to Waukegan, and in the spring of 1873 engaged at his trade in Evanston, where he remained some eighteen months.  Going from there to Toledo, Ohio, he worked first at his trade, but during the last year of his residence there engaged in the crockery business, which he prosecuted until coming to Wichita, in 1877.

      Appreciating the Divine injunction that "it is not well for man to dwell alone," Mr. Charlton, while a resident of Evanston, Ill., led to the marriage altar, April 14, 1875, Miss Abbie L. Huse, who was born in Farmington, Me.  They became the parents of three children-Vester A., Lotta A. and a son Guy, the latter of whom died in infancy.

      The present wife of our subject, to whom he was married at Wichita, March 23, 1883, was Miss Mary E. Eggleston, who is a native of Chillicothe, Ohio, and related to Gen. B. B. Eggleston, of that State.  Of this union there were born two sons--Arthur James and George Beroath, who are both deceased.  Mr. Charlton, politically, is a United Labor man, being a stanch advocate of the theories advanced by Henry George.  Socially, he belongs to the Masonic fraternity, in which he takes a deep interest, and rules his life in accordance with its excellent admonitions.

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