Adam Charlton, was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, February 19,1806. At the age of eighteen he was sent by his father to America to report whether the prospects would warrant the family in removing to that country. He left England, April 4, 1824, and arrived at New York after a stormy passage of sixty days. His father and the family came the following year. He was married to Miss Ann Gray of Caledonia, N. Y., 1828. For some time he had charge of a store at Garbuttsville, and then at Mamfordsville, N. Y. In July, 1832, he removed to Cattarangus County, and settled upon a new farm, three miles from Ellicottville. After being about two years in Cattarangus, he entered upon the employment of the Holland Land Company, and remained in their service and in the service of the successors of that company in their proprietory rights in Western New York the Farmer’s Loan and Trust Company of New York, till April, 1849, when he removed to Canada and purchased a farm one mile south of Ayr, Ontario. He moved from Canada to Columbus City, Iowa, in April, 1855; returned to Canada in. 1876.
He is a quiet, unassuming man, but possessed of remarkable traits of mind; noted, when in the employ of the Holland Land Company, for business ability; he is possessor of a great and varied fund of general intelligence. His education was Academic. At the age of forty he took up the study of Greek and Hebrew, and attained to a good knowledge of both. His studies from that time were chiefly directed to biblical research, and in that line his attainments are such as to entitle him to a high rank among scholars.
Mr. Charlton was an early abolitionist, having been among the first to associate himself with that party in the United States, at a time when the social and business consequences of such a step were vexatious. He is spending the evening of his days peacefully in Canada, tenderly cared for by loving friends; but not without longings, at times, for the beautiful prairies beyond the Mississippi, where some of his children with their families still remain, and where he spent twenty years of his blameless and worthy life.