My Genealogy Hound

HOWARD CARTER ROBERTS, son of Ellwood and Mary L. (Carter) Roberts, was born seventh mo. 6, 1879, at Centre Square in Whitpain township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. Through the Roberts line he is of Welsh-Quaker descent, the ancestor of the family, Edward Roberts, having come to Pennsylvania from Wales in 1699 and settled at Abington, near Philadelphia, removing later to Great swamp (Richland), now Quakertown, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania. His Roberts ancestry is fully given in the biographies of Ellwood Roberts and Hugh Roberts, elsewhere in this work. His mother belongs to an old New Jersey family.

Job Carter (maternal grandfather), was born second mo. 20, 1813, in Gloucester county that state, following the occupation of a farmer all his life, and accumulating a considerable estate. He died second mo. 23, 1893, being one week more than eighty years of age. He was a Friend. He was twice married, his first wife being Mary Turner, and the couple having two children, Joseph T. and Abigail. Joseph T., born 1844, married (first wife), Anna Frances Clark, daughter of Edward and Jane Clark of Clarksboro, New Jersey. Anna Frances Carter died in 1885, leaving two children: Mason on, born 1878, married Blanche Somers, they having two children; and Etta. Joseph T. Carter, married (second wife), Emma Tonkin. Abigail Carter; daughter of Job and Mary Turner Carter, born 1847, married Burkett W. Warrington; they have one child, William, married Hannah Haines; they have one child. Mary, wife of Job Carter, died in 1850.

Job Carter married, in 1852 (second wife), Rachel Owen, daughter of Joseph and Mercy (Kirby) Owen. The Owens are an old family of Welsh descent, their ancestor having come to this country in the time of William Penn, and in the course of two centuries they have become connected with many families of New Jersey and Pennsylvania by intermarriage. The children of Job and Rachel (Owen) Carter:William Mickle, Mary L., Sarah and Lydia (deceased). William M. Carter, born seventh mo. 1856, educated in public and select schools, mostly in Friends’ schools, of the vicinity, became a surveyor and justice of the peace, and is now located at Woodbury, New Jersey, where he is city engineer, and is engaged in the settlement of estates and other business of that character; married, 1882, Elizabeth Pym Horner, they having two children: Owen, born second mo. 4, 1890, and Ella, born second mo., 4, 1895. Mary Long Carter, daughter of Job and Rachel Carter, born fourth mo. 19, 1858; married ninth mo. 13, 1878, Ellwood Roberts of Norristown, they having the following children: Howard C.; Charles Alfred; born fifth mo. 30, 1881, died third mo. 14, 1888; Alice Rachel, born sixth mo. 15, 1886, graduated from the Norristown high school in the summer of 1903; William Hugh, born second mo. 12, 1888, educated in the public schools of Norristown; Mary Carter, born first mo. 31, 1892. Sarah, Carter, born third mo. 20, 1861, married Richard Brown, they having three children: Rachel, Clinton and William; Lydia, fourth child of Job and Rachel Carter, died in 1896, in her twenty-second year.

Howard C. Roberts was educated in the public schools of Norristown, engaging in 1897 in the business of a grocer, and combining with that occupation that of building, in which he has been associated with his father for several years. He has taken an active part in the organization of the Norristown and Bridgeport Retail Grocers Association, and is a life member of the Montgomery County Historical Society. He is an antiquarian in his tastes, taking delight in the collection of old china, books, furniture, etc., in all which he is an enthusiast. In politics he is an active Republican, taking a deep interest in every question that divides parties, local, state and national. He has the family characteristic of energy, industry and strict attention to business; is fond of literature, music and art; is a careful observer of everything that transpires around him, and is accustomed to investigate closely the causes that underlie effects, desiring to have more than a superficial knowledge on any subject that engages his attention. Although a young man, Mr. Roberts is an expert in real estate values, and owns considerable property in Norristown. Few men at any age are better posted in all that relates to the progress of the community. He is, as his family have been for ten generations, an active member of the Society of Friends.