Harold B. Quarton

Harold Barlow Quarton was born in Algona, Iowa on February 8, 1888 to Judge William Quarton and his wife Ella. After graduating from Algona High School, he attended Grinnell College where he received his bachelor's degree in 1908. He clerked at a law office and then worked at a bank before becoming a high school principal in 1909. After two years as a principal, Quarton moved to Washington, D.C. in 1911 where he attended George Washington University.

After receiving his master's degree from George Washington in 1912, Quarton began his career in the U.S. Consular Service as a consular assistant in March 1912. He was appointed U.S. Deputy Consul General in Berlin, Germany in May 1912 and served concurrently as the Vice Consul effective July 1914. During his tour in Germany, Quarton married Louise van Ackeren in May 1916. Quarton continued serving in Berlin through the start of the Great War up until February 3, 1917 when the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. Quarton's reports to Washington about German mistreatment of consular officials angered German officials. A few days after U.S.-German diplomatic relations were severed, Quarton and his wife left for Rotterdam in Holland where he served as the U.S. Vice Consul before his promotion to U.S. Consul in February 1918.

After his assignment in Rotterdam, Quarton was appointed U.S. Consul to Helsingfors (present day Helsinki) in newly independent Finland in June 1918. During this tour, Consul Quarton also served as a member of the Inter-Allied Trade Commission for Finland. In May 1919, Quarton moved to Sweden where he became the U.S. Consul in Malmö. In May 1920, Quarton transferred back to Finland where he served as the U.S. Consul in Viipuri (present Vyborg, Russia). In March 1922, he was appointed U.S. Consul to Riga, Latvia.

A few months later, Quarton was named the U.S. Consul to Tallinn and arrived to take up his new post in December 1922. He served as the U.S. Consul in Tallinn during the Estonian Communist Party's unsuccessful coup against the Estonian government in December 1924. Both Quarton and his Vice Consul witnessed the armed conflict from their apartments. In 1925, Consul Quarton received Estonia's Cross of Liberty 3rd Class for his contributions to the Estonian state.

In April 1925, Quarton moved to Koblenz in Germany where he served as U.S. Consul for two years. In July 1927, Quarton was transferred to the U.S. Consulate in Havana, Cuba. By then a widower, he married Helen Sherrer in November 1927. Quarton remained in Cuba until January 1933 when he was named U.S. Consul in Guayaquil, Ecuador. In April 1933, he was promoted to the rank of U.S. Consul General. In 1934, he became the U.S. Consul General to St. John's, Newfoundland, which was still a British colony at the time and had not yet joined Canada.

In June 1941, Quarton returned to the Department of State only to be named the U.S. Consul General in Keijo (the name of Seoul, Korea during the Japanese occupation), where he arrived in September 1941. After the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Consul General Quarton along with other U.S. diplomats serving in Japan were interned for several months. In the summer of 1942, Consul General Quarton and other captive U.S. diplomats and prisoners were exchanged for Japanese citizens held in the United States. After returning to the United States in September 1942, Quarton moved on to his next post as the U.S. Consul General in Malaga, Spain.

After the end of the Second World War, Quarton accepted his final overseas assignment in May 1946 as the U.S. Consul General in Tampico, Mexico. After retiring from the U.S. Department of State in 1950, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin where he lived there until his death on February 4, 1981.