Edward H. Cater, of section 1, Carson Township, was born in Belmont County, Ohio, August 07, 1855, the son of James Cater, a native of the same place, whose family were early settlers of that part of Ohio. They were formerly Quakers or Friends. Our subject's mother, nee Susan Perry, was a daughter of Jesse and Malinda (Poole) Perry, the former a native of Ohio, and a relative of Commodore Perry, the latter was a native of Virginia, born in 18__. The parents moved to Bureau County, where they lived until their death. They reared seven children. Edward, the eldest of four sons and three daughters, was about two years of age when his parents moved to Bureau County, in the spring of 1857, settling northeast of Princeton, on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, near Malden. The father lived there until his death, which occurred in 1868, and the mother still lives on the same farm where they first settled in 1857.

The subject of this sketch resided in Bureau County until he came to Pottawattamie County, and bought his present farm of eighty acres of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Company, which is located one and a half miles east of Carson. He built a good frame house in 1889, and everything about the place shows the thrift and energy of the proprietor.

He was married in December, 1877, to Miss Mary L. Belknap, who was born and educated in Bureau County, Illinois, and the daughter of Eli and Mary (Belknap); the father was a native of New York, and the mother of Ohio.

Mr. and Mrs. Cater have three children: Roy Austin, Claude Gaston and Edna Mary. They lost their first-born, Lena Leota, by death, when an infant.

Politically Mr. Cater is a Republican, and he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he is a teacher and assistant superintendent of the Sabbath School, in which he takes an active interest.