Ezra Carl "Carl" Breithaupt was born February 10, 1866 in Berlin (later Kitchener) Ontario ,the son of Philip Ludwig (Louis) Breithaupt and Catherine Hailer. After attending local schools in Berlin, he took a general course at the evangelical NorthWestern College in Naperville, Illinois from from 1883 to 1887. In the autumn of 1890 he began the two-year course in applied electricity offered at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He was certificated in applied electricity in 1892, returned home and entered the Breithaupt Leather Company, of which he became a director, and the Berlin Gas Company, in which he combined professional and family interests.

Carl became the manager of the Berlin Gas Company. The firm began generating electricity, and in 1895, with power from Berlin Gas, they converted two horse-drawn streetcars owned by the Berlin and Waterloo Street Railway Company to electric power; also lighting eight arc street lamps in Waterloo. Carl became the president of BWSR, expanding both the railway and the gas company, building a large gas tank and extensive additions to the powerhouse and plant for Berlin Gas and installing new rails and two new electric cars for the street railway.

Carl was prominent in the local community serving as a member of the local Board of Trade's financial committee in 1893, and as vice-president the following year, and in 1896 sat on its council. He also served as choirmaster and a Sunday school teacher at Zion Evangelical Church.

Carl died January 27 1897, at 30 years of age, from injuries sustained in an explosion in the new gas tank he had built for Berlin Gas. He was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, Kitchener.