William Carleton Jr. was born February 7, 1772 in Colonial Virginia, in the county of Botetourt. He was the son of William Carleton Sr. and Esther Brown. King George III was king. The American Revolution was just over the horizon.

William was nearly two when Bostonians raided a British cargo fleet in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773 and dumped their cargo of tea overboard. The British Parliament, angered by this "Boston Tea Party," closed the port of Boston and made war a more likely possibility.

William was four years old when America declared her independence on July 4, 1776 and the battle to secure that independence would last until the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

William was a circuit-riding Methodist Preacher when he married Magdaline Prince on October 14, 1805 in botetourt County, Virginia. Magdaline had been born June 1, 1783 in Shenandoah County, Virginia. She was the daughter of Godfrey Prince and Martha Hannah Lezenia.

Sometime between July 1817 and August 1820, William moved his family to Washington County, Indiana, near Salem. While still in Botetourt County, William and Magdaline had five children: Samuel in 1807, John in 1810, Hannah in 1812, Esther in 1815, and Elizabeth in 1817. Another child, James, was born 1820 in Indiana.

Remaining a Methodist Preacher in Washington County, William also worked as a school teacher there. He died October 14, 1822 at the age of fifty.

When all six of William and Magdaline's children moved to Missouri in 1840, Magdaline went with them. Having been born during the American Revolution, Magdaline died during the American Civil War on January 12, 1863 at Leesville in Henry County, Missouri.

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