b. 31/07/1879 Havelock, Ontario, Canada. d. 1962 Havelock, Ontario.
DATE OF AM ACTION: 10/05./1914 Havelock, Ontario, Canada.
James J Carter AM
James was the son of Joseph Henry and Sarah Carter (nee Miller), and he married Kate Jennie Loucks on October 4th, 1905. They went on to have two daughters Della and Marion, and son Joseph Julian (who sadly died aged just 3) . Having joined the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1903, becoming a brakeman just before his Albert Medal action. He remained with the CPR until his retirement in 1946, and spent his final years in Renfrew, north Ontario, having lost his wife in 1935. The little girl that he saved, Violet Freeman, then aged 3, lived until the age of 97, dying in January 2010.
AM CITATION:
On the day in question Carter was on the engine of a train running between Havelock and Smith’s Falls in the Province of Ontario. The train was rounding a curve near Tweed at a speed of about 15 miles an hour, when Carter, who was on the inside of the curve, saw the child trying to cross the line 200 feet ahead. He shouted to the driver to stop, and immediately made his way along the footboard to the pilot on the front of the engine. Realising that the train, the speed of which had been reduced to about 8 miles an hour, could not be pulled up in time, he jumped from the engine, and, rushing forward, just succeeded in rescuing the child, falling with her intothe ditch at the side of the line. The train was stopped when the engine and 8 coaches had passed the spot where the child was rescued.
BURIAL LOCATION: MAPLE GROVE CEMETERY, HAVELOCK, ONTARIO.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
