He attended public school from an early age, and worked numerous trades with his father, including as a carpenter, butcher, ironworker, and farmer.

Later in life, Canty served as first vice president and as a director of the Mutual Savings and Loan Company in Charleston, West Virginia, which was the city's African-American bank.

[7] He attended public school from an early age and worked with his father, who was a carpenter, butcher, and ironworker.

[7][8] Canty's father also ran for election for a seat in the Georgia General Assembly but lost by a few votes.

[10] After continuing to follow his father into one trade after another, Canty joined other young men in attending night school for his self-improvement.

[11] Canty's father was opposed to his attending Tuskegee and advised him to remain in night school in Marietta.

[15] Before he graduated from Tuskegee, Booker T. Washington hired him as an instructor for the institute's night school and blacksmithing shop.

[17] Following graduation, Canty was also hired as the institute's commandant and head of its night school for a year.

[19] Canty returned to Marietta and plied his trade at a carriage shop where machine work was done for two furniture factories and a planing mill.

[20] While he was in Marietta, Canty served as the superintendent of Sunday school at a local church on his father's farm.

[25] In the early summer of 1898, the institute's principal John H. Hill resigned to accept a commission as a first lieutenant in the United States Volunteers.

[25] Following Hill's resignation, the institute's Board of Regents named Canty as the acting principal.

[b][2][3][25] While acting principal, Canty established the institute's first military training corps for students, which emphasized physical fitness and sports as major parts of its program.

[25] In that time, Canty's department had grown to include instruction in: blacksmithing, carpentry, masonry, mechanical drawing, plastering, printing, and wheelwrighting.

[22] That year, Canty arranged for the construction of West Virginia State College's military training corps rifle range.

[22] Canty served as the first vice president and a director of the Mutual Savings and Loan Company in Charleston—the city's African-American bank established on July 10, 1918.

[37][38][39] Canty was joined in these ventures by Charles E. Mitchell (president of Mutual Savings and Loan), Anthony Crawford, and Beresford Gale, among others.

[42][43] Following Canty's death in 1964, the house was purchased by West Virginia State College and became the only example of Neoclassical architecture on its campus.

[42][44] The house has been relocated three times and served as an office building and the campus health clinic before becoming the site of the West Virginia State University Athletic Hall of Fame.

[33] In September 1950, West Virginia State's ROTC unit honored Canty in a special ceremony for his involvement with the college's military training corps program.

[48] Following an extended illness, Canty died at his residence in Institute on February 16, 1964,[1][2] of lobar pneumonia after developing prostate cancer.