This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Bell, Carson, Terry Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DiH.2ACEB/1697 Message Board Post: History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County; S. B. Nelson & Co., 1894, Page 890 ENOCH T. CARSON, president of the Knights Templar Insurance Company, was born September 18, 1822, in Green township, this county, and is a son of William J. and Margaret (Terry) Carson. His maternal ancestors came from Virginia, and were among the first settlers in Cincinnati. Our subject remained with his father on the farm until his twenty-third year, when he served three years as collector of tolls on the Cincinnati and Harrison turnpike, during which time he largely made up the deficiencies of his early education by systematic reading during his leisure hours. In 1848 he was appointed deputy sheriff of Hamilton county, and served for two years. He then entered the employ of the Hamilton & Dayton Railroad Company, where he remained two years, and became their first depot master at the Sixth Street Depot, Cincinnati, In November, 1852, he was appointed chief deputy sheriff of Hamilton county, the duties of which office he faithfully executed for four years, Two years after the expiration of his term of office he engaged in the lamp and gas business, which he followed until 1861, when President Lincoln appointed him United States repository and collector of the Port of Cincinnati, an office which, with the outbreak of the Rebellion, developed fro! m a minor position to one of vital importance. Cincinnati being the distributing point for the armies South, questions arose of the most perplexing nature, and requiring the soundest. judgment to correctly adjust. During his administration ten million dollars were sometimes received in a single day, and the amount on deposit upon one occasion reached the enormous sum of thirty millions. To stand keeper of such vast stores almost within hearing of the famished Confederacy's cannon certainly required great courage, but he remained in the position until the close of the war, when he retired from office, and the following year made an extensive tour of the Old World. In 1868, in connection with Mr. John E. Bell, he engaged in the development and sale of a large tract of land in Mill Creek Bottom, which they subdivided into building lots. Three years later he returned to the gas fixture and lamp business, in which he continued some two years. In 1870, being the nominee of both parties, he was almost unanimously elected member of the State Board of Equalization, in which position he rendered signal service to the tax-payers of Cincinnati. The following year he was appointed commissioner of costs and fees of Hamilton county; also a member of the board of park commissioners of Cincinnati. Mr. Carson became a member of the Masonic Order in 1845, was elected grand commander of Knights Templar of Ohio in 1871, and about the same time lieutenant-commander of the Northern Supreme Council of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, thirty-third degree. Mr. Carson has one of the largest private libraries of English, French and German works on secret soc! ieties in the world; it is also especially rich in illustrated Shakespearean literature.